A Quarian meets 4 super powered girls What could go wrong?
by ME1905
Summary: Talo was your normal quarian, starting his pilgrimage. Until he ended up on Remnant and thats when he meets 4 girls who defy all logic. But, what he does not know is how important these girls will become to him and he'll show them the galaxy. What will happen? You'll have to read and find out.
1. Chapter 1 edited

**Hi, my name is ME1905 (obviously not my real name but you know what I mean) and this is my first fanfiction. I've been reading them for several years now and I was debating whether or not I should upload one and I'm still not sure seeing as how I'm quite busy at the moment. But it does provide some relaxation from work and upcoming exams and whatnot. So, yeah, I'll try to upload when I can but don't expect me to start throwing out chapters every week or so. **

**Now, as for the story, it's a crossover between Mass Effect (btw, the ME in my username are short for Mass Effect because I BLOODY LOVE MASS EFFECT!... excuse that little outburst) and RWBY (I BLOODY LOVE RWBY, THANK YOU MONTH OUM FOR BLESSING US WITH GREATNESS). A bit of a strange mix but I love both franchises to bits.**

**As for the story, you should know, if you read the description, that it is about a quarian because I personally love the quarians (thanks to the cinnamon roll that is Tali, she's the best, especially when she is drunk, thank you, Citadel DLC). Speaking of Tali, this quarian is basically the male version of Tali. Same general appearance (apart from the obvious differences e.g gender), same background and same personality because as I said, Tali is the best (in my opinion, the other mass effect characters are great). Also, there's a harem which won't be big, in fact it will just be the members of team RWBY because they are all great in their own unique ways: Ruby is the cutest, Weiss is pretty much the tsundere (for those who don't know, it's an anime term for someone who denies that they care for someone, often violently, though luckily for our quarian, Weiss won't be violent like that), Blake is the closet pervert (we all know you are, Blake, when you read that type of literature *cough* Ninjas of Love *cough*) and Yang is my personal favourite, being the sexy and punny one (also, our resident quarian will actually find her puns funny which sounds completely insane now that I've written it but he will).**

**Now, as for background, the mass effect universe and RWBY universe are the same and this is set before the events of Mass Effect and if I get far enough into the story, I think I will write about the events of Mass Effect and have male Tali and team RWBY in them. It's also set, in terms of RWBY, after volume 2 but with massive changes, for example, Salem and the rest of her faction like Cinder don't exist and aren't plotting any nefarious plans so you don't have to worry about anything like Pyrrha's death. As for the White Fang, they've been dealt with and those like Sienna Khan and Adam are imprisoned. It's basically RWBY but with a normal highschool life, at least in Remnant terms because I'm pretty sure being taught to slay monsters which are attracted to negativity is not on any curriculum in our world.**

**Anyway, sorry about all the word vomit but I had to get that out of the way so that there won't be too many questions about what exactly is going on in this story's version of reality. Also, our quarian's name is Talo'Zorah Nar Rayya (I know, imaginative but I don't want to spend too much trying to figure out a name because it would probably take 10 million years … or something). All I have left to say is that I hope you give this story a review and that you follow it and I apologise for any grammar mistakes I make or if I don't write an engaging story, I am an amateur writer. Any feedback would be wonderful and I'd be grateful.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the wonderful franchises known as RWBY and Mass Effect. They belong to Monty Oum (May he rest in peace) /Rooster Teeth and BioWare respectively. **

**Edited as of 5/3/19: THANK YOU SO MUCH to PhoenixClaw2128 for the review! Also, for future reference, when the text is in square brackets and bold, it's an authors note.**

**AND NOW, ON WITH THE SHOW!**

**Year 2183, Location: The Rayya**

Talo'Zorah Nar Rayya was nervous. Then again, most would be when they are about to embark on their first journey away from the only home they've known, on their own.

You're probably wondering what exactly is going on and I shall explain. Talo'Zorah is a member of the nomadic race of people known as the Quarians, a people known for their particularly gifted minds when it comes to technology and engineering in the universe. They are part of a galactic community consisting of various alien races which inhabit the galaxy and these include the respected Asari, the scientific Salarians, the militaristic Turians, the bloodthirsty Krogan, the Hanar, the Volus, the Drell and other such species. At the centre of this community is the council, the government body which presides over the stability of the galaxy, ensuring peace is maintained between the races. On the council, there are three councillors who represent the main three species, the Asari, the Turians and the Salarians.

As you can see, there's a problem there, seeing as how the rest of the species don't have councillor to represent their people. Sure, the elcor and volus may have ambassadors but it seems unlikely that this status quo will be shifting any time soon. Despite this unfairness, the council does do its job and tries to maintain peace throughout the galaxy while they sit in the Citadel, a massive construct which is the home of the council and it accommodates many due to its vast size. It is truly enormous and it is believed to have been built by an ancient civilisation that we call the protheans who once had an enormous empire, spanning the galaxy. They are also believed to have built the massive constructs throughout the galaxy called mass effect relays which when used allow a ship to travel faster than the speed of light. This allows someone to travel from one point in the galaxy to another mass effect relay in a short amount of time when it would usually take a ship years upon years to travel. Yep, the protheans were truly amazing so what befuddles many is where exactly did they go since they disappeared nearly 50,000 years ago, leaving behind only the citadel, the mass effect relays and random artic acts that are still being found to this day.

Anyway, like I said, Talo'Zorah is a Quarian, a nomadic race who also happen to possess the biggest fleet of ships the galaxy has ever seen. You'd think that these people would be a respected species amongst the galactic community. Nope. The truth is, being a quarian is difficult because many are predjudiced towards Quarians unfortunately due to a past mistake which has caused the entire galaxy a great deal of grief.

Approximately 300 years ago, the Quarians who lived on their home planet of Rannoch decided that they would create their own synthetic workforce, machines that would serve them and so, using their knowledge of synthetics, they created these machines and named them the Geth (Khelish for Servant of the People). They were the most advanced VI possible but not AI because Artificial Intelligence is illegal in the galaxy because of the dangers of a freethinking machine. But, while the geth weren't sentient, they were all connected together by a network and slowly began to gain sentience. Then, one day, a geth unit asked its quarian supervisor the question which terrified the Quarians and condemned them to their fate: "Does this unit have a soul?" The Quarians were terrified of this turn of events and what do people do when they confront something they are scared of and don't understand: they use violence. The Quarians decided to eliminate the geth but like any other species that was threatened, the geth also responded with violence and after a long conflict, which claimed billions of Quarians, leaving only a few million left, the geth drove their former masters from Rannoch though they didn't follow them.

You'd think it couldn't get any worse but it did. The council learned of their carelessness and stripped them of their embassy as punishment. So, the Quarians were left to their own devices afterwards and so, they tried to find a new world to colonise but were met with no success and they gave up because of the lack of options. As a result, the Quarians were confined to their fleet of ships and were left to wander the galaxy as nomads and over the years, many became prejudiced towards them for many reasons, the creation of the geth and the negative stereotypes that surround them with many seeing them as thieves, beggars, nomads sadly. On top of all of that, to add insult to injury, they developed a certain medical condition over the years onboard the ships. Their ships were known for their sterile environments and spending years aboard these ships and no where else, it led to the Quarians developing incredibly weak immune systems which means they can't be exposed to the open air for too long or they'll die from a simple bacteria which wouldn't even phase one of the other species. So, they were forced to confine themselves to environmental suits for the rest of their lives, making life even more difficult.

So, there you have the history of the Quarians, a gifted and shunned people, but now I believe we should get back to our scheduled programming.

Talo'Zorah is a quarian and he is waiting for the biggest moment of his life. He is aboard the ship known as the Rayya, the ship he has lived on for his whole life (which is why the rest of his name is Nar Rayya, meaning "of the Rayya") and behind the door in front of him are the 5 admirals of the admiralty board who lead the Quarians and he will approach them about his pilgrimage. The pilgrimage is a rite of passage that all Quarians go through and its when they leave the flotilla behind to search for a gift, something of use to the fleet and they present it to the captain of the ship they wish to be a member of. There are roughly 17 million Quarians on the 50,000 ships of the fleet and conditions are cramped, meaning everyone has to pull their own weight.

Talo is waiting in nervous anticipation, rubbing his hands together and messing with them, a habit he has always had, to settle his nerves but failing spectacularly. Talo, like all Quarians, has a humanoid shape but two fingers and a thumb on each hand and their lower legs bowed backwards. He is garbed in a violet environmental suit, with gold highlights on certain parts. The suit hugs his body, showing that it is lean but with toned muscle due to a life spent on a ship, maintaining it, years of manual labour. The only feature that can be seen through the cloudy visor of his helmet was his fluorescent eyes and you could see just the tip of his small nose.

Talo waited for what seemed like hours, the 17 year old Quarian wondering when he would get to see the admirals but with every moment, he became more anxious. Now, Talo always was a shy individual who had trouble talking to authority figures but he was still a strong willed individual. So why was he so nervous?

Well, when your father happens to be one of the admirals, that does make you feel nervous, especially when you don't have the best relationship with him. Talo's father wasn't a bad father as in he hit his kids, no far from it. He was just distant and absent most of the time, in fact, all the time. It had been that way as long as he had remembered, even before his mother died but it seemed to get worse after Talo's mother died as if Rael'Zorah was trying to cope with the grief by burying himself in his work. The only positive of the whole situation was that Talo's aunt, Raan, another admiral, was behind the door and she was closer to him than his own father.

Suddenly, the door opened and Talo almost jumped out of his suit (not literally) and his name was called: "Talo'Zorah Nar Rayya!". So, steeling his nerves, Talo walked through the door, leaving the queue he was standing in behind and walking past the young quarian who just left the room, to go on his own pilgrimage. He tried to walk into the chamber with a confident gait but he was probably failing spectacularly and looking like a complete idiot.

The five admiral stood before him, his father, Rael'Zorah, his aunt, Shaala'Raan vas Tonbay and the three others, Daro'Xen vas Moreh, Han'Gerrel vas Neema and Zaal'Korris vas Qwib-Qwib **[NEVER ASK ABOUT THE NAME OF HIS SHIP]. **Every year, the admiral would come here to give the pilgrims the right to leave the flotilla. It always seems unnecessary to have all the admirals here to just give people permission to leave but it was tradition and a formality. 'Although Xen looks like she'd rather be anywhere else', Talo thought, glancing quickly at the admiral who seemed to be tapping her foot impatiently.

As soon as Talo reached the centre of the room and stood before the admirals, Rael started to speak to him.

"Talo'Zorah Nar Rayya, you are about to set out on your pilgrimage and you shall find a gift for your chosen captain and the flotilla. This is an important stage of your life, you have been prepared for this for a long time and it is within the interests of the fleet and our people that you bring back a truly great gift. So, we give you the right to leave the flotilla and return when you have found your gift and know that even though you may end up far from the fleet, know that you will always be a proud member of the flotilla. Good luck, pilgrim. Keelah sel'ai."

He finished with the typical quarian phrase and in response, the four other admirals and Talo said, "Keelah se'lai." With that, Talo turned away from the admirals, taking one last look at his father. Throughout their brief meeting, the admiral remained businesslike and even during the little speech, he didn't even show any pride in his son. He treated him like any other quarian and not his son, with cold indifference.

'Boshtet', Talo thought slightly bitterly. He'd always had a cold relationship with his father but he'd hoped he would have shown some warmth on this day but no. It was always the same. But, luckily, Raan showed a warm expression that Talo could just see and showed a grateful expression that Raan could just see, acknowledging her warmth and pride in her nephew. That was enough to make him forget about his father and so he walked out the room and he seemed to have a little skip in his step. Externally, he didn't appear any different. Internally, he was bubbling with excitement.

"IM GOING ON MY PILGRIMAGE!", he squealed/screamed in a manly fashion inside his head. If he'd said it vocally, he would have probably died of embarrassment with a red face **[Quarians have red blood like humans so I'm assuming they get a red blush].** He rushed down to where he would get his ship, passing by other Quarians like the flash, without a care in the world. Very soon, he saw his little ship, the type that was given to all pilgrims since the Quarians couldn't afford to spare a fancy, large ship for every pilgrim so each pilgrim had a small, hardy ship and while it might not be fancy, Talo didn't care.

He was given his ship and before he knew it, he was jettisoned out into space. At the helm, Talo piloted the ship through the flotilla, bobbing and weaving between the ships before he left the fleet behind and the last thing he heard from the fleet was "Good luck, pilgrim".

After a few minutes of empty space, that's when Talo came face to face with the colossal structure known as the mass effect relay, which easily dwarfed Talo and his ship and the quarian was left in awe of the prothean's technology. Shaking his head, the young quarian approached the structure and very soon activated his FTL drive and soon experienced what FTL travel was like.

Just like that, his pilgrimage had begun.

Now, even though, FTL travel is fast, travelling from one point of the galaxy to another still takes a large amount of time, easily a couple of hours.

"I should take a nap. It will be several hours before I exit FTL travel", he said, knowing all about FTL travel.

With that in mind, the young quarian found a comfortable position in his seat and slowly dozed of in to the world of dreams and just before he did so, he recalled his last conversation with his auntie Raan, the night before.

**Flashback time:**

"Auntie Raan, please, stop worrying, I'll be fine", Talo said, trying to calm his slightly flustered Aunt.

"It's my job to worry, Talo and you're about to go off on your pilgrimage so don't you tell me not to worry", Raan said in a mock annoyed voice which had a slight teasing element to it.

"Alright, alright", Talo chuckled.

But, then Raan's expression, or at least her eyes, gained some seriousness as she says in a serious yet soft tone, "just promise me you will be careful. The galaxy is a dangerous place and many are not fond of our kind".

Talo had been told plenty about the prejudice that many Quarians suffered when they left the fleet and while it did sadden him that people would hate him for a mistake that his ancestors made, he knew that he could handle it. He schooled his expression into a serious one.

"Auntie Raan, I promise I'll be fine. I'm a pretty good engineer and I most definitely know my way around a gun", he said reassuringly. Those were understatements as even amongst Quarians, Talo was a gifted engineer and technician and he has been given weapons training and has proven that he knows how to use a shotgun and he is also proficient with other such guns as well.

"Though I'm glad that you worry … unlike some people", he said his smile slowly turning into a frown and Raan realised he was taking about his father.

"Nephew, your father does care. He … just has a lot of difficulty expressing that", she said to try and reassure him but Talo wasn't truly convinced by her and he is reminded of that fact he'll have to stand in front of him tomorrow, even if it's only for a short while and that was the only thing he was not looking forward to.

Shaking off the depressing thoughts, Talo regains his smile.

"Anyway, Auntie Raan, I would just like to say … thank you. For everything. For taking care of me. I don't know what I would have done after mother died if it hadn't been for you", he said gratefully to the older woman. He just needed to express his gratitude before he set off and probably not see her again for a long period of time.

In response to this, Raan smiles and her eyes seemed to glisten slightly and she pulled her nephew into a warm embrace even if they wore their environmental suits.

"You're very welcome, Talo and know that I will always love you", she says warmly to her nephew.

Talo reciprocates her hug and says, "likewise".

Releasing her nephew from her embrace, she says to him, " good luck, Talo and once again, please be careful".

In response, Talo says, "Don't worry, besides, what's the worst that could happen?"

Now, neither of the family members are human so they are not familiar with Murphy's Law and so neither of them know that if you don't want things to go wrong, you NEVER, EVER ASK THAT QUESTION.

**End of flashback.**

After 5 hours of restful sleep, Talo was suddenly woken up by the sound of an alarm and when he opened his eyes, he realised two things, one, his ship had exited FTL travel and two, he was face to face with a ship that clearly dwarfed the quarian's ship and had rather sinister intentions.

Talo then realised when he scanned the ship that he was in deep trouble because the inhabitants of the ship were not only pirates. They were Batarians. Of all the things he could've encountered on his pilgrimage, it had to be batarian pirates. Talo looked up at the giants ship in fear while his eye twitched in annoyance at his luck. Batarians were generally an unpleasant people, both in looks and temperaments with their green skin and four eyes and the fact that slavery was a part of their society.

There was silence between the ships as they were stuck in a standoff. The Batarians were the first to act as they shot at Talo's ship, causing it to shake and its pilot to shake about as well.

"Bosh'tets!", Talo shouted angrily.

He was angry but he knew he couldn't fight them since his own ship had no weapons whatsoever and so he had only one course of action: he turned Tail and ran, or in this case, flew away. Of course, the Batarians wouldn't relinquish their prey and were in hot pursuit.

While Talo was flying away from his pursuers, he was berating himself for his carelessness.

"STUPID IDIOT, STUPID IDIOT, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP BUT YOU DID AND NOW YOU ARE ABOUT TO EITHER DIE OR BE ENSLAVED BY BATARIANS. IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED, TALO?"

Eventually, he started spewing a bunch of curse words in his language that he normally would not even dream of saying, especially in company but when you are about to be enslaved or killed, I think you are at the liberty to say whatever you like.

The Batarian ship continued to assault the tiny ship, managing to land a few solid hits on the vessel. This is when Talo started to truly panic as he realised that this could be it; only 5 hours into his pilgrimage and he's already about to die like an idiot because he was an idiot.

But, then, Talo saw what could be his saviour: a field of asteroids to his right. The spaces between the space rocks were small enough to keep something as big as the batarian ship out but his ship was small enough to fit. It would be a tricky and dangerous manoeuvre but it was his only option at the moment. So, after saying "ancestors, protect me", he bolted for the treacherous asteroids and started bobbing and weaving between the rocks, leaving the space ship behind.

Talo didn't even try and look behind him as he was too focused on the danger in front of him as he navigated the asteroid field and it was only 10 minutes after he broke through to the other side that he finally looked back and noticed the absence of a giant dreadnought of doom.

Talo let out a sigh of relief and also realised at that moments that he had no idea where in the galaxy he was and decided to check. He was in the Sol system; hardly the most exciting of places in the galaxy **[wonder how that will change for Talo] **and so Talo decided to set off again for the mass effect relay and then pay attention to where he wants to go.

But, he realised that he had a slight technical problem. His ship was, quite frankly, messed up by the batarians' attack and it was in no shape for FTL travel, considering the damage to the mass effect drive.

Talo let out a few curses as he accepted his situation.

'Alright, my ship is in no state to use the mass effect relay, I have enough food and sterilised drinks to last two months and of all the systems I had to be stuck in, it was the one with no civilised life that can actually help me', he thought, taking into account all the factors that show that the odds are against him.

"Come on, you are not going to die here. You promised Auntie Raan you would return safely", Talo said to himself defiantly.

Not willing to just roll over and die, Talo began to formulate a plan in his head.

'First step is to find a planet where I can rest and find resources to patch up my ship and work on the FTL drive', he though calmly.

With that in mind, he searched up everything known about the Sol system. "Okay, what do we know .. 9 planets, one sun and it seems only one of the planets is viable for life", he said to himself while looking at the data.

"The planet has no name. That's helpful", he deadpanned to himself. "Seems nobody bothered to name these planets because of how boring they are" (oh, how that view will change, Talo. Just you wait).

So, setting course for the unknown, viable planet in question, Talo set off in his damaged ship.

It didn't take long for Talo to find the planet. It appeared to be an average planet with ocean covering the majority of its surface and it had what appears to be 5 land masses. There was a strange shaped one in the top left corner while in the middle, there was the biggest landmass which was mostly covered by greenery but the left had a large section which was covered in sand. Directly north of the biggest land mass was another one which was completely covered in snow while to the right of the biggest mass was another land mass which had what appears to be a variety of ecosystems. Finally, there was another land mass directly south of the rest of them. It seemed pretty normal all things considered with its shattered moo… wait, WHAT!

That's right. The planet had one moon which wouldn't be that shocking. No, what was shocking to Talo was that one side of the moon was shattered with pieces of it suspended in space. It looked like a plate that had been broken. Talo honestly had no idea what to think about this and was wondering:

"What in the name of the ancestors could destroy half a moon", he wondered in awe and slight terror, thinking about something capable of a feat such as this.

Shaking himself free of his awe and terror, he refocused on the task at hand and he decided he would land on the largest land mass to see what was down there. Bracing himself for a reentry, Talo bolted down towards the planet at high speed breaking through the atmosphere.

When he broke through, he saw that he was flying over a forest and that it was night. Talo took in a moment to take in the view as he could see mountains in the distance and as he looked around, he saw something else which shocked him.

Civilisation. There was a city in the distance with thousands of lights shining in the darkness and also, just a few kilometres away from the city was a large structure, standing like a beacon **[hah, see what I did there … okay I'll stop. Yang probably would've found it funny]. **

Talo, realising what he was seeing, said, "there are people on this pla-"

CRASH

A sudden hit at the side broke Talo from his reverie and he was thrown about in his ship like a rag doll.

"OH FOR ANCESTORS SAKE, I'VE JUST HAD TO DEAL WITH A COUPLE OF BATARIAN BOSH'TETS AND NOW I HAVE TO DEAL WITH SOMETHING ELSE. WHAT IS IT THIS TI-".

Whatever Talo was about to say died in his throat when he saw what was the source of his anger. He thought the batarian ship was bad but this monstrosity would've made his suit very wet if he was a von.

It was a giant, black bird. And when I say giant bird, I don't mean like a bird the size of a bed, I mean one the size of one of the smaller ships in the flotilla. THAT'S STILL PRETTY DAMN BIG!

Talo didn't know at the time but he was facing a nevermore, one of the most dangerous types of creatures of Grimm that inhabit the planet of Remnant. And as if a ship sized bird with beady red eyes full of hate and a terrifying white mask didn't make it horrific, the fact that it was launching feathers at Talo tripled its scariness rating. It was like a flying thresher maw (a giant, carnivorous worm which also spews acid).

Poor Talo screamed at the top of his lungs, "WHAT THE FU-" but was cut off by a feather hitting the engine of his ship and causing it to spiral down to the ground.

Underneath all the alarms and noise coming from the ship, you could just hear the terrified screams of the young Quarian as his ship spiralled out of control and hit the ground with a boom that resounded across the forest. The impact knocked the poor quarian unconscious and he rejoined the land of dreams. Little did this Quarian know that he had started a journey which would be full of adventure, friendship, hilarious hijinks and maybe even a little bit of love.

**Meanwhile**

While all of this happened, Talo didn't know that he had two spectators. There was what appeared to be a middle aged man with silver hair, brown eyes and glasses and his outfit mainly consists of an unzipped black suit over a dark green, buttoned vest and green shirt. He also wears black trouser shoes and long, dark-green pants. He holds in his hands a cane and in the other a coffee mug which never seems to be empty.

This man is Professor Ozpin, the enigmatic headmaster of Beacon Academy and one of, if not, the most powerful huntsman on Remnant.

The other figure was a stern looking, middle aged woman with blonde hair in a bun and green eyes behind a pair of glasses as well. She wears a white, pleated top with a black skirt and black boots and strangely, a black and purple cape. Her accessory, also strangely, is a riding crop.

This woman is Glynda Goodwitch, another teacher at beacon and an accomplished huntress in her own right.

While she was stunned at the unknown transport that came from the sky and fell down into the Emerald Forest, Ozpin was unfazed, having gotten used to such strangeness over his long live(s).

"Professor, did we just see what we saw", Glynda asked the headmaster in disbelief.

"Yes we did, Glynda. It's like I said after the initiation", he replied enigmatically.

A smile curled on his face.

"This is going to be an interesting year".

**AND DONE! **

**Oh my lord. This took forever to write. It'll probably get even worse. Well, I hope I didn't disappoint. I'm sorry if I appear rather amateurish in my writing because this is my first story. I do know that I'm going to have lots of fun writing this. And I do hope you will enjoy it.**

**Also here are some definitions: Bosh'tets are basically bastards or similar curse words, Keelah se'lai literally means "By the homeworld I hope to see one day" and von means someone who has a weak bladder. Just for clarification.**

**Like I said at the beginning, I'd appreciate a review and if you followed my story.**

**And with that, peace!**


	2. Chapter 2

**I AM BACK, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. **

**I just started writing this after I uploaded the first chapter so I don't know what exactly when this will be uploaded but I will do so as soon as possible. Anyways, back to the story. So, Talo's pilgrimage so far hasn't been going smoothly, he's already made himself a target of some Batarians, he's trashed his ship already, he can't use the Mass Effect relays to get anywhere else in the galaxy and so is stuck in the Sol system. And just when things started looking up when he sees civilisation, he is attacked by a nevermore. Man, the author can't give him a break … oh, wait, I AM THE AUTHOR! WHY DO I DO THIS TO TALO? I DO NOT KNOW! But don't worry guys, our Quarian friend's situation will start to improve as we see in this chapter thanks to the man, Ozpin. Of course it has to be Ozpin. Who else would it be? **

**Also, I'll be introducing Team RWBY and other characters in this chapter and I will try not to make them too OOC and unrealistic and instead, I'll try to do them justice.**

**So, yeah. Moving on. I would appreciate a review and if you would follow this story, it would mean a lot. Furthermore, I hope I don't bore you with my amateurish writing and I apologise if there are any grammar errors or any other type of errors. Any advice or criticism would be appreciated as well.**

**Edited as of 5/3/19**

**So, yeah, I don't have much else to say other than, LET US GET ON WITH THE SHOW!**

**Beacon Academy, Vale, Remnant – 8:00 Saturday (morning after last chapter)**

While poor Talo is slumbering in his crashed ship after the vicious nevermore attack, time passes by and soon, the sun begins to rise and greet the people of the kingdom of Vale.

Remnant is the name of this peculiar planet as that is what it is; a Remnant of a greater planet that is long since lost though hardly anyone knows about what Remnant used to be like before it's moon was shattered. All the people of Remnant have known is that Remnant is a hostile world which doesn't favour humanity because an inevitable darkness rose in response to mankind's presence. This darkness is known as the Creatures of Grimm, beings of darkness which are attracted to negativity, have an overwhelming hatred for every living creature on the planet and have an insatiable hunger for destruction. There are a variety of these creatures and they come in all shapes and sizes and they are all deadly in their own way and no one is exactly sure where they come from but they do seem to keep coming and coming no matter how many are killed. In the past, when man was still primitive, the Grimm came close to making mankind extinct but it was because of Man's resourcefulness that soon, mankind were able to fight back against the Grimm and achieve a stalemate. Man had harnessed a substance that was named dust and using it, man was able to advance, create new technologies and weapons to fight back. There was also the discovery of aura, which is believed to be, by many, the manifestation of a person's soul. Every living creature on Remnant has an aura except for the creatures of Grimm which lack a soul but only those who have had their aura unlocked can use it to fight against the Grimm. It can act as a shield to block a blow that would normally be fatal and be used in attacks and also, when an aura is unlocked, that person can achieve what is known as a semblance, a power which is unique to each person. Using these tools, the people who fought back against the Grimm, who were known as Huntsmen and Huntresses, were able to push the shadows back and allow mankind to prosper and form civilisations. It started out as small villages and towns and eventually, massive cities were formed and it finally led to the formation of the kingdoms of Remnant. There are four of these kingdoms, Vale (the one we are in right now), the kingdom in the middle and eastern part of Remnants largest continent, Sanus. Then, there's Vacuo, a rough place which is located on the western part of Sanus in a desert which used to be an oasis. The third kingdom is Mistral, a diverse kingdom in ecosystems and cultures which is found on the eastern continent of Anima. Finally, there's Atlas, the youngest and arguably most successful kingdom which is found on the northern continent of Solitas, a winter wasteland.

These kingdoms provided safety to the people of Remnant although some decided to live outside them in small villages though they don't last for long without protection because of all the creatures of Grimm. But, even if humanity was able to create these monuments of civilisation, it didn't mean that the danger was no more. The Grimm were still out there and so, each kingdom set up academies to train young people to become the next generations of huntsmen and huntresses to defend Remnant from the Grimm. Atlas has Atlas Academy, Mistral has Haven Academy, Vacuo has Shade Academy and Vale has Beacon Academy.

But, the focus of our story is on Vale's academy, Beacon and more specifically, on a certain team of huntresses in training who will have the fortune of meeting our Quarian friend, Talo. So, we bring our attention to the giant structure that is known as Beacon Academy which can be found east of the city of Vale and is situated on an impressive cliff edge which overlooks the city in the distance. It's an imposing castle like construct with the Beacon tower looming over the rest of the school.

Inside one of the many dorms of the school is a team of first year huntresses who are currently asleep, soundly underneath their covers, savouring the extra, glorious hours of sleep they have been granted because it is a Saturday…

That is until a shrill whistle pierced the ears of three of these girls and they awoke, startled, one of them more so than the other two. They all turned to glare at the culprit which was the usual suspect, their leader, Ruby Rose.

"GOOD MORNING, TEAM RWBY!", Ruby screamed.

Ruby Rose is a young girl with black hair which have red highlights and she has silver eyes which seem to gleam with childish innocence which is appropriate seeing as how unlike the rest of the first year students in Beacon, she is 15 and not 17. This is because she is a prodigy who was moved ahead two years thanks to Professor Ozpin who witnessed her stop a crime in progress. The fact that she's a prodigy is also helped by the fact that she was trained by her Uncle Qrow who is also one of the most skilled huntsmen in existence. She's wearing her typical outfit, a Gothic Lolita outfit which is coupled with her iconic red hood and cape. Ruby is known for her innocence and pure heart as she has always wanted to be a hero who saves people and protects them from the Grimm just like her mother, Summer Rose who tragically died during a mission. She also has an unhealthy addiction to cookies.

"Honestly, Ruby, you must get rid of that wretched thing!", said Ruby's partner, infuriated that her beauty sleep was interrupted. Ruby's partner is called Weiss Schnee, a well known name in Remnant. Weiss has white hair which is currently let down but is usually done up in a ponytail on her right side, she has blue eyes, pale skin due to having lived in Atlas her whole life and her otherwise angelic features are only marred by the crooked scar which goes down her left eye. Currently, she's wearing her sleep wear but her usual outfit is a white dress top and a white 'combat skirt' like Ruby's red and black one and she has white shoes. She basically wears a lot of white. As for her personality, she is an arrogant and cold but hardworking and kind girl. She only appears cold because of her upbringing as she is the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company which is the largest provider of dust on Remnant and its current head, her father, Jacques Schnee, wasn't the best father and not a man of integrity and has turned the company into a corrupt one. Her desire is to change that one day, as a huntress.

"Yeah, and if you don't, I'll get rid of it for you", said another one of Ruby's teammates, in a particularly venomous but quiet tone. This voice belongs to Blake Belladonna, the third member of the team. She has black hair, amber eyes, fair skin and to top it off, she wears a bow on her head. Now, that bow isn't a fashion statement unlike what many would believe, it's actually to hide her secret which only she, her team and other individuals know about. She is a Faunus, the other dominant creature on this planet other than humans. Faunus look human apart from one difference; each Faunus has one animal trait and in Blake's case, it is cat ears which she hides with her bow. This is due to the sad fact that lots of humans are prejudiced towards Faunus and they are treated badly and companies like the Schnee Dust Company use Faunus for cheap labour and the conditions for them are appalling. Luckily, her teammates don't care about her Faunus heritage and are disgusted by how Faunus are treated by some. As for temperament, Blake is quiet, a strong believer in justice but also tends to be a loner. Her usual outfit is a black buttoned vest with coattails and a single silver button on the front. Underneath this is a white, sleeveless, high necked, crop undershirt and white shorts with a zipper on the front of each leg. Her favourite pastime is definitely reading and her tastes are *ahem* unique **[insert joke about Ninjas of Love here].**

"Yeah, sis, I love you but a girl needs her sleep", said the final member of team RWBY and this voice was the least annoyed and it belongs to Ruby's half sister, Yang Xiao Long. Since the two of them are half sisters, Ruby and Yang hardly look alike as Yang has long blonde hair, fair skin, lilac eyes as well as a curvy figure. Yang and Ruby have the same dad, Taiyang Xiao Long but Yang's mother was Raven Branwen, the sister of Qrow, who gave birth to Yang and left which led to Taiyang marrying Summer and having Ruby. After Summer's death, Raven was revealed to Yang and Yang decided to look for her and find out why she left her. Nowadays, she looks for her whenever she gets a lead and doesn't actively search every single day like she wanted to when she was a kid thanks to a certain event. Yang's temperament is a fun one as she is loud and boisterous but she also has a fierce temper. Her usual outfit is a yellow top, a tan jacket with puffy sleeves, black shorts and some brown boots. She's the most outgoing definitely and she has a terrible sense of humour as she cracks terrible puns always. Also, some advice, NEVER TOUCH HER HAIR IF YOU WANT TO LIVE. I told you she has a temper.

"C'mon, girls, it's the weekend. Do you really wanna waste all that time sleeping when we could be doing something fun right now?", Ruby asked excitedly while she seemed to be bouncing on the spot quickly thanks to her semblance, her super speed which fits her hyperactive nature.

"Yes", Yang deadpanned to her hyperactive sister, causing Ruby to deflate slightly. Then she turned to Yang's silent partner.

"Blake?", she asked hopefully.

"Sorry, Ruby but now that I'm awake, I was hoping to get some reading done", she replies quickly as she whips out one of her many books, The Man With Two Souls, from out of nowhere and starts to emerge herself in the world of reading.

This caused Ruby to deflate even more like a balloon, looking even more sad.

"Weiss .. Bestie?", she asked her last teammate.

"Ruby, I don't have the time to fool around. I have 2 assignments for Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck for next week. And were not "besties.", she answers her partner and leader, more impatiently than the others as she takes out her work.

With that, Ruby seemed to deflate even more and she let out a soft and cute whine before her face hardened and she said in a serious tone, "you made me do this."

Yang looked up to her and asked, "what're you talki-" but she cuts herself off with a sound of discomfort as her face contorts into a similar face of discomfort. The others hear this and look up. And they immediately regret it as their faces too are marred with an uncomfortable grimace. This is because they are trying with all their might, to resist. For Ruby is using a technique that many have seen but none have resisted.

….

….

….

THE PUPPY DOG EYES!

Yes, Ruby's eyes were somehow enlarged and made to look like the eyes of a puppy which were currently slightly watering while she wore a look of rejection and sadness on her face.

"Rubes, that's not fair, you know I can't resist the look", she said, trying desperately to look away but failing. As Ruby's sister, she's been on the receiving end of this look many times and yet she never seemed to develop any resistance to it.

Blake didn't say anything but you could see the look of discomfort on her face.

'I may not like dogs but even I can't resist the adorableness of a puppy, especially the eyes', Blake thought while trying everything in her power to resist and not give in to the cuteness that is Ruby.

Weiss was admittedly putting up a strong fight as out of all of them, she appears to be the least affected.

"Ruby, that isn't going to work so you might as well give up n-" and her words die in her throat as the puppy dog eyes intesify and it could've been the girls' imagination, but it appears as though a background of puppies with similar eyes appeared behind Ruby.

'What, where did that come fr-', Weiss, Blake and Yang thought simultaneously before there faces started to contort even further because of the strain of trying to resist the look.

The three of them, whose barriers were slowly starting to break down, were about to give in when …. *RING*.

The ring came from Ruby's scroll.

"Oh, that was my scroll," said Ruby as she casually dropped the look like it had never happened but you weren't hearing the other teammates of Team RWBY complain as they all breathed a heavy sigh of relief since they were spared from the clutches of the look.

Hearing an "ooh" from Ruby, Yang asked her baby sister, "what is it?"

"It's from Professor Ozpin. He wants to meet us. Says that he has a mission for us", she said to her teams mates.

The others made noises of confusion in response to this. They didn't think they'd be getting any other missions after their last one. Their last mission was their first mission where they had to accompany a professional huntsman and deal with an infestation of Grimm. When they were allowed to take it, despite it not being a mission suitable for first year students (given permission by Ozpin as he knew that they would've found a way to have taken that mission anyway, considering their gift to break the rules and go off on their own), they were excited … less so when they realised that the huntsman they were accompanying was their teacher, Professor (DOCTOR) Oobleck, the teacher who drinks way too much coffee and teaches them history. They were sent to Mountain Glenn, an abandoned attempt at expanding the kingdom of vale because it failed when the Grimm killed everyone there. While on paper it said that it was just about dealing with Grimm, of course, in typical RWBY fashion, the mission goes in a completely different direction. It turns out that Roman Torchwick, an infamous thief and criminal mastermind was working with the White Fang, a group of Faunus who once had the mission of achieving peace between Faunus and humans but ha devolved into a group of vengeful Faunus who wanted to wipe humanity off the face of Remnant. Sienna Khan, the leader of the White Fang who turned the organisation into a terrorist one, was present along with the leader of the Vale branch of the White Fang, Adam Taurus. They used a train that was rigged with bombs to blow a breach in the barrier dividing Mountain Glenn from Vale and allowed the Grimm to run wild in the city. Luckily, Team RWBY was there to save the day alongside Teams JNPR and CFVY and there were a bunch of other professional huntsmen and huntresses there. As powerful as Sienna and Adam were, they weren't match for all those huntsmen and huntresses and they were defeated and imprisoned while all the Grimm were taken care of. Honestly, it was a gutsy but dumb move on the White Fang's behalf and it appears as though they were frustrated by their lack of progress as they had been foiled by team RWBY and others repeatedly. So, Taurus and Khan weren't too pleased and so, they acted irrationally and did something stupid which didn't work. Anyway, Torchwick, Khan, Taurus and their followers were arrested, the Grimm were taken care of and all was well. Hopefully, the White Fang can be turned around if a new leader decides to step up and take a more peaceful approach. After all of that, all the teams' missions were over and all that was left was to wait for the Vytal Festival, a tournament in which teams of huntsmen and huntresses in training compete. A symbol of peace after the Great War.

The fact that they were being given another mission so soon and with the Vytal Festival coming up so soon was rather strange.

In response to their confusion, Ruby showed her teammates the message herself:

_Miss Rose_

_I would like you and you're team to visit my office as soon as you are free today. I have a mission for you which I think would be of great interest to all of you as it certainly interests me. I will fill you in on the details as soon as you arrive._

_Yours sincerely _

_Professor Ozpin_

"So, should we go?", Ruby asked earnestly, already knowing the answer.

"Of course, you dolt. We can't just ignore Professor Ozpin's order", Weiss scolded her leader though not maliciously.

Blake gave a silent nod of confirmation with a slight look of intrigue on her face.

Yang had a boisterous grin on her face and said, "Heck Yeah. I'm always down for a mission". Then, her grin turned cheeky as she said, "let's hope it's not a Grimm situation. Guys? Am I right?"

Yang looked around, expecting laughter as a reception for her AWFUL pun but was met with deadpanned looks … and Ruby banging her head against the wall.

**Ozpin's Office**

In the headmaster's office, they were the two usual figures, Professor Ozpin with his coffee mug in his hand, sitting behind his desk while Glynda Goodwitch stood beside him, tapping her foot on the ground impatiently. They waited and waited for those elevator doors to open and after what seemed like hours, the doors finally opened and Team RWBY stepped out, wearing their usual outfits, with their fearless leader saying at a fast pace, " 'tme"

In response to this long, unintelligible speech, Weiss hit her partner across the head, creating a large cartoonish bump on Ruby's head, silently saying 'dolt' while Blake, Yang and Professor Ozpin has amused smiles on their faces but Professor Goodwitch and Weiss has slight frowns of annoyance.

"Thank you, Team RWBY, for coming. Now, you're probably wondering why exactly I've summoned you here", he said to the team of huntresses in training before taking a swig from his mug, "*gulp* on a Saturday".

Weiss decides to ask the first question, "Sir if I may?"

Ozpin gives her a nod of confirmation and she continues, "Why exactly are we being given a mission now? I thought we didn't receive another mission until after the Vytal Festival."

Ozpin responds to her question, answering it partially, "you would be correct, Miss Schnee. But, like actual Huntresses, you should expect to be called for mission at any time. While it is true that I wouldn't give a team of huntresses in training another mission at this time, the circumstances of this mission and what it concerns are of great interest".

But, what exactly is it, teach. C'mon, don't leave us Yanging", Yang punned causally, making the eyebrows of her teammates twitch, making Goodwitch grumble slightly in annoyance at her casualness and her pun but Ozpin maintained an amused smile.

"Well, miss Xiao Long, I'll have to first ask you all a question".

Ozpin asked, while still holding that enigmatic smile, "Do you believe in aliens?"

….

….

….

EH? That is what every member of team RWBY said in response to this question as their eyes, comically, turned to white circles and Glynda sweat dropped at their looks as well as Ozpin's blunt question.

Before any member of team RWBY can respond to that random and blunt question, Ozpin pushes a button underneath his desk and a screen pops up from his desk and starts to play a video. The team of huntresses huddle around the screen and look at the proceedings caught on video. What they see blows their poor, little minds

They see what looks like a little space ship which is hovering above the emerald forest before it's attached by a nevermore and sent hurtling down into the forest below like a fiery comet. And like that, the video ends and the screen just innocently disappears back into the desk, leaving a shocked silence.

The first of the girls to regain their composure is Blake but even she still looks slightly shocked by her what she saw and she asked her enigmatic headmaster in disbelief, "sir, was that authentic of just some sort of hoax?"

Forgoing his amused smile for a serious expression, he responded and confirmed, "yes, that was real as I and Professor Goodwitch saw it occur last night. I have confirmed with General Ironwood that this isn't an invention of Atlas origin. It does indeed appear to be a vehicle of alien origin."

And just like that, a switch seemed to go off in Ruby's head as her expression turned to one of pure excitement as glitter seemed to appear around her.

"ALIENS!", she said in a high pitched, squeaky voice, "YOU MEAN PROPER ALIEN ALIENS!"

Ozpin regained his amused expression and said, "indeed, Miss Rose".

That was all that was needed to set Ruby off as she started bouncing off the walls and roof at super speed, babbling along the way. Weiss has schooled her expression although she still looked shocked, Blake had a minuscule and intrigued smile on her visage and Yang had her iconic boisterous smile as she too was rather excited at the concept of alien life.

Professor Goodwitch, who had a twitching eyebrow, whipped out her riding crop and suspended the hyperactive 15 year old in midair before lowering her to the ground and said through gritted teeth, "please calm down and show some restraint, Miss Rose".

"Sorry", Ruby said meekly but with an excited smile still present on her face.

"Anyway, as I said, yes, this is indeed of alien origin and your mission is to go to the crash site in the emerald forest and find out more. Do you accept this mission?", he asked almost teasingly, already knowing the answer.

Before any other member of the team could speak, hyperactive Ruby said, "OF COURSE, WE'LL TAKE IT, IT IS ABOUT ALIENS, OH MY GOSH, I AM SO EXCITED, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, NOW, TEAM RWBY, BANZAI!" And then she rushed out of the office into the elevator.

Ozpin shakes his head in amusement and tells the other three teammates, "there's a bullhead down at the docks that will take you to the crash site. I wish you good luck"

Weiss responded respectfully, "we are honoured you chose us for this mission."

Blake said quietly, "we won't fail you"

And Yang, in typical Yang fashion, said with her boisterous smile on her face, "of course we won't fail. We're Team RWBY."

With that, the other three rush after their hyper leader into the elevator and when the doors closed, Glynda turned to Ozpin and asked the question.

"Are you sure about this? If this truly is our first contact with an alien Lifeform, are you sure it's wise to send in a team of four huntresses in training? Especially this team? This is a very delicate situation."

Ozpin responded with his reasoning, "I would prefer that a team of students were to approach an alien than say the Atlas military. Who knows what James would do if he was the one confronting an alien?

Glynda and Ozpin both grimaced slightly at the thought of James Ironwood being a representative of humanity to an alien species. Ironwood meant well but his methods were often more confrontational and often involved force. After all, he's a general.

"I see your point, sir", Glynda conceded. "I just hope that those girls don't mess things up."

"Don't worry, Glynda", Ozpin reassured the Professor. "I have every bit of faith in Miss Rose and her team. They haven't let us down before and I doubt they will now."

**Bullhead on route to the crash site**

After the team left the headmaster's office, they headed straight for the bullhead that would take them to the crash site. At the moment, they were sitting comfortably while they waited for the bullhead to arrive at their unique destination. Ruby was like a person with ADHD as she seemed to almost bounce or vibrate in excitement while she was sitting down. Weiss has given up on trying to calm her down as it was like trying to knit fog; it's impossible and she simply had to grit her teeth and bare with it. Although she herself was excited to meet an alien. Blake was similar to Weiss as she didn't appear any different than how she normally looks but inside, she was, admittedly, bursting with excitement. Yang was the only one, other than Ruby, who showed any excitement over their current mission.

"We're going to meet an alien, we're going to meet an alien, we're going to meet an alien" was the mantra that Ruby was repeating underneath her breath, over and over again.

Eventually, Weiss decided to crush her dreams.

Weiss said with her eyes closed in irritation, "Ruby, we don't even know if there is an alien onboard and if there is, we don't know if it's ali-"

"DON'T RUIN THIS FOR ME", screamed Ruby in Weiss's face while the miffed heiress wiped away some spit that came from her leader's mouth on to her face.

"C'mon, Ice Queen, let Ruby enjoy herself", said Yang to Weiss, using the nickname that infuriates her.

"Yeah. Also you can't deny that you're excited at the prospect of meeting an alien", said Blake the ninja Faunus.

"Of course, I'm excited but at least I'm not expressing it like a child who ate too much sugar. And why does everyone call me Ice Queen?", she asked, seeming genuinely confused.

"I'll stop calling you it the day you finally go with Jaune on a date", Yang teased, making Weiss almost gag at the thought. Jaune, the leader of team JNPR was a nice guy and a good friend but he was too pushy and Weiss wasn't interested. Besides, he already has a beautiful and remarkably kind girl who likes and pines for him **[we love you, Pyrrha!].**

After that, the team fell into silence apart from Ruby's chant which Weiss eventually just blocked out until finally after several minutes, the pilot said, "we've arrived. Now, remember, when you need extraction, call me with your scrolls and all come and pick you up.

"Thank you!", Ruby yelled thankfully. And with that, the four huntresses jumped down from the bullhead with their landing strategies, Ruby used her weapon, a scythe and sniper rifle hybrid called Crescent Rose to show her descent with shots and she used the blade to hook herself onto a tree branch. Taking out her son weapon, a dust rapier called Myrtenaster, Weiss used her semblance, her glyphs to give herself a platform. Blake used her pistol, sword hybrid weapon, known as a Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe, called Gambol Shroud, to hook herself into a tree by launching her weapon at the tree while holding onto the ribbon. Finally, the bombastic Yang used her shotgun gauntlets, Ember Celica, to break her fall with shotgun shots.

They all landed safely while the bulkhead flew away to a safe distance should there be any trouble. With their game faces on, even Ruby, they surveyed the area and that's when they spotted something abnormal.

There was a trench rug into the ground as if something moved across the land at a fast pace and it was big enough to knock down the trees in its path. Following the trench, while also being wary of their surroundings, they eventually reached their goal.

At the end of the trench was the ship that they saw in the video and now that they were seeing it up close, they realised that this was definitely not from Remnant. It was alien

Upon this confirmation, Ruby shrieked, "OH MY GOS-" but her mouth was covered by three pairs of hands as her teammates looked at her with points looks.

Weiss whispered furiously to her partner, "do you want to attract every Grimm in the forest?" While Grimm were mainly attracted to negative feelings, they could definitely still hear.

With a sheepish look on her face, Ruby let out a muffled apology.

Looking around, the Team didn't seem to have attracted any attention despite Ruby's previous outburst and so the team decided to approach the alien vehicle. When they got closer, they noticed it has extensive damage on its sides from an unknown attack while the wing was damaged by the Nevermore's feather. It was releasing a bit of smoke as a result.

"Wow, this thing looks like it has been through the blender", Yang whistled when they can see all the damage.

"Do you think the pilot is still alive", Blake asked her teammates.

"Well, let's find out!, "she whispered excitedly and using her super speed, approached the cock pit with a giggle before anyone could stop her.

"Ruby, wait!", Weiss whispered furiously.

When Ruby got to the cockpit, she realised she couldn't see inside as it appeared clouded up so she spit on her hands and with great gusto, put her her hands on the bottom of the glass and …. failed to open the cockpit. With another heave she tried to open it but failed. She tried and tried and tried again, getting more and more frustrated while her teammates watched her with sweat drops in the back of her heads. It was almost laughable to watch at Ruby's pitiful attempts to open the cockpit. In fact, they were silently laughing at Ruby's plight.

Eventually, Yang decided to give her some help, seeing as how she was the strongest on the team. With even greater gusto, Yang cracked her hands and she tried to open the cockpit … but to no avail. In disbelief, Yang and Ruby tried again and again while their partners watched their fruitless endeavours. It eventually got to the point where Yang's infamous temper had been triggered as her lilac eyes turned an angry shade of red and hair started to shine and burn.

"You know, I was trying to be nice, ship but seeing as how you won't play nice, how about I introduce you to the Yang way of doing things", she says through gritted teeth as she prepares to obliterate the glass with her rage.

But Blake interrupts Yang before she lets loose.

"Er, Yang?", she says to Yang nervously.

"Yes, my dear partner", Yang responds with her eyes closed and a seemingly happy but not truly happy smile. It was probably given away by the muscle twitching in her forehead.

Blake then points towards a lever that was likely the solution to their little problem.

….

….

"Oh", said Yang and Ruby as Yang's anger abated and the sisters both developed an atomic red blush on both their faces as they realised that they had done goofed up.

"We knew that", said Ruby, trying to save face.

"Clearly", said the sisters' partners in a deadpan tone.

Blake then decided to get on with the show and pulled the lever which caused steam to suddenly be ejected from the cockpit as the cockpit window was suddenly ejected from the ship and it landed a couple of feet away from the ship. Luckily it missed the girls as Yang and Ruby sidestepped away from the oncoming glass.

All four girls, with trepidation, peered into the cockpit and when the steam cleared, that's when the girls saw their first alien.

It was certainly a peculiar looking thing and there wasn't actually much to see as the creature was wearing a strange looking, violet suit which covered its whole body. Its helmet had a cloudy visor which obscured its face from being seen by the girls. It was clearly male as it had a humanoid shape apart from the two fingers and a thumb on each hand and the bowed back lower legs. Yep, it was definitely an alien.

"Wow", the girls all said in awe though Ruby was noticeably the most excited.

Then, they noticed while the alien was asleep, it was making a lot of coughing noises.

"Hey, do you think this guy is sick", Yang asks worriedly.

"Sounds like it", Blake confirmed.

"Right, we should take this alien back to Beacon", said Weiss, establishing their next goal.

"Right", said Ruby excitedly, agreeing with Weiss. "Yang, you carry him. Let's get out of here before any Grimm show up."

With those orders, Yang picked up the strange alien and carried him on her shoulders and she couldn't help but notice something.

"Man, this guys quite light but he's got quite a bit of muscle on him", she says in a slightly perverted manner.

All three other huntresses gained a blush on their faces with Weiss and Blake facepalming while Ruby said, "Yang, really?!". Yang snickered in response.

Blake called in the Bullhead and after five minutes of waiting, the giant vehicle arrived to take them back to the school and Yang placed the alien on the floor while they surrounded him.

"So", the pilot said over the intercom, "that's really an alien."

"Yep", Yang replied, popping the p.

"Holy Crap", the pilot said in disbelief.

"Yep", Yang said once again.

The flight back was spent in silence as the girls stared at the alien in front of them, sleeping soundly apart from the odd cough.

They were in awe of this creature but they didn't realise how important this alien was going to be to them and I doubt they knew that when they woke up this morning that they were going to start on a journey and see things that were beyond their wildest dreams

**AND DONE ONCE AGAIN!**

**So, it's slightly longer than the last chapter. Hopefully, the chapters will get even longer. So, the girls have finally seen Talo and next chapter will be about them meeting and Talo finding out exactly where he is. **

**Now, I would like to offer some thanks to the people who've decided to review or follow my story. Thank you pushtrak1, Project Ray and the Order Of The White Knights.**

**Anyone else who has read this story, I would greatly appreciate a review or if you would follow my story. Any criticism or advice would be helpful. Also, apologies if my writing appears amateurish.**

**And with that, ladies and gentlemen, peace!**


	3. Chapter 3

**I'M BACK! Here I am with the third chapter. Just to let you know, I'm grateful for the support so far and I hope I am doing alright with this story. Also, I'd like to address a review that someone made about how I'm going to deal with the whole dextro and levo protein problem, seeing as how there doesn't appear to be any suitable food for a dextro protein based Lifeform like Talo. Thank you, GreenTheRyno. Talo already has food in his ship, enough to last him for two months (I think I mentioned it in chapter 1) but as for when that food runs out, well, Talo will have to think of something. I'm still trying to figure my way around that and seeing as how I only understand the basics of Mass Effect science and science in general. I'll have to come up with something that's probably scientifically incorrect. But, then again, how realistic is Mass Effect and RWBY? Sorry ****. **

**Anyway, moving on, Talo has been found by the girls, he's been taken to Beacon, what will happen next?**

**And, now, ON WITH THE SHOW!**

"This alien creature is extraordinary", said the doctor examining Talo to the people present in the infirmary. Those people were team RWBY, seeing as how they were the 4 to find the alien, Professor Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch. Also, Ozpin thought it best to invite General Ironwood of the Atlas military and headmaster of Atlas Academy. Ozpin's reasoning being that it wasn't wise to be keeping secrets from Ironwood as he would most likely find out later on and would most likely feel betrayed if he wasn't informed of the presence of an alien Lifeform on Remnant.

Ozpin seemed to think that Ironwood took it all rather well all things considered as he didn't decide to have the alien locked up or anything else. Although he could tell that the Atlesian general still had some suspicions despite having been told that the alien was found in a crashed ship. But, then again, you can't blame him, seeing as how this is the first contact with an alien species that the people of Remnant have had and since they've lived in fear of Grimm for as long as they can remember, being cautious is pretty much Ironwood's job as a general. Even if he goes about things the wrong way.

"What exactly do you mean that, doctor?", Ozpin inquired while examining the unconscious alien with his eyes. Though, he had to concur that the alien was certainly interesting to look at. Especially those legs.

"You mean other than the fact that this is an alien being?", the doctor asked rhetorically. When he woke up today, he didn't expect that he would be examining an alien. Life works in mysterious ways.

"Well, sir, I don't know all the workings of the body, seeing as how I've tried to be as careful as possible with the patient since we don't know anything about his biology. Obviously, this alien is humanoid, looking similar to humans except for some differences like the lesser number of digits on his hands and feet and the differently shaped legs. But, it seems that the biggest differences between this species and humans is on the cellular level."

The doctor then directs his audience's attention to the pictures of the scans that the doctor took of the alien. He first points to the X-ray, which shows the skeleton of the alien.

"This scan suggest that this creature has a particularly strong bone structure, stronger than a human's. It seems to be the result of years of adaptation and evolution. And, then there also this."

Then, he moves on to the next set of scans which show the cells of the alien.

"You won't be able to see it but this a creature has a big cellular difference compared to humans. Look."

He proceeds to hang next to the scan another one.

"This is the scan of a human and the difference between them appears to be the proteins."

Everybody else understood what he meant … except for Ruby and Yang.

"I see. So, you're saying that this alien is made up of a different kind of protein compared to humans", Ozpin said, fully understanding what the doctor meant.

That's when Yang decided to ask.

"Yeah, that's great and everything but could you explain what that means exactly?", Yang said with a befuddled expression while Ruby looked equally as confused.

"What he means, you brute, is that proteins are what every living creature is

made up of and humans are made up of one type of protein but this alien is made of a protein that we've never heard of before", Weiss elaborated.

"Oh", said the two sisters simultaneously, now sufficiently filled in.

"Moving on", the doctor said after that interruption, "this is actually bad for the alien if he's stuck on our planet".

"Why is that?", Ozpin dared to ask.

"Because if he is made up of a different type of protein, he can't eat our food. To him, it would be inedible or perhaps even fatal as he would suffer from an acute allergic reaction".

That fact was enough to unnerve the inhabitants of the room.

But the doctor wasn't finished as he continued to say in a grave tone, "there's more".

'More?', everybody thought after hearing the doctor say that. What more could there possibly be?

"The scans also revealed a rather serious problem with this alien's physiology ", the doctor said in a serious voice.

Team RWBY all looked at the alien lying on the bed and thought about what could possibly be the problem with this alien's body.

The doctor revealed, "it appears that the alien wears the suit because-"

*Groan*

The doctor was interrupted by the sound of pain coming from the alien being on the hospital bed.

Everybody jumped slightly and then they all quickly huddled around the bed.

"It would appear our unexpected guest is coming to", said Professor Ozpin.

Ruby has her hands curled up into fists and started chanting quietly, "Ohmygoshohmygoshohmyg-"

That is until Weiss told her to be quiet.

The alien let out another groan and that's when everyone noticed that the circle around where his mouth should be was flashing, as if to indicate that his mouth was moving underneath that visor. And then everybody saw a pair of fluorescent, purple orbs slowly start to appear on his face and everyone realised that those were his eyes, fluttering open. The alien didn't seem to realise where he was until his vision began to focus and that's when Talo saw 8 strange faces peering down at him.

Talo didn't know where he was or who these strange people were so he did what anyone would do in his situation; he panicked.

Everybody else in the room looked into the alien's eyes and then saw panic appear in them and were startled when the alien pushed away his audience with his deceptive strength, fall of the bed and then back away from them until his back hit the wall.

"Woah, easy there, buddy, we're not gonna hurt you", said Yang, trying to reassure the panicky alien.

But all Talo heard was gibberish. Obviously, these people were not advanced enough to have achieved space travel and as a result, his translator knows nothing about this language and so, it can't translate it for him.

In response to what he perceives as gibberish, Talo asked in a panicked tone, "_who are you people? Where am I?"_

But, the humans couldn't understand the poor quarian and from the panicked response to Yang's attempt at calming him, they could tell that he didn't understand their intentions.

Throughout all of this, the explanation of the alien's body and such, Ironwood had been quiet. He had suspicions about this creature. Even though it had crash landed on their planet, that didn't necessarily mean that he was innocent. For all they know, it could be a criminal or it might try to conquer the world when it calls the rest of its species or any other alien stereotype. But, it may turn out that he is innocent. But, Ironwood has to find out if he's a threat or not. And he can't tell anything about this alien when it's wearing that mask.

So, without talking, Ironwood approached Talo.

"James", Ozpin says warningly when he sees the look in his eyes.

Already knowing what Ozpin was thinking, he said, "Oz, we don't know what this thing is. It could be a threat to our world. Just because he crash landed doesn't mean that he's innocent."

"James, would you please think this through?", Glynda said, once again frustrated at the man's confrontational tactics. This situation requires finesse, not an interrogation.

The members of Team RWBY wanted to say something as well, seeing as how the poor alien was practically cowering before them but they knew that they shouldn't try to talk back to the general.

So, Ironwood, unhindered, strode towards the alien, causing the alien to let out more protests.

"_Please, stay back", _Talo pleaded to the tall man, striding towards him.

Ironwood stopped in front of him and started to reach towards his mask. Talo, seeing what he was doing, became even more panicked as his heart rate spiked.

"_No, please, don't take off my mask! You don't know what you are doing!", _Talo said, almost screaming while he put his hands in front of his face, ready to protect it if need be.

Seeing how the alien was almost having a panic attack, the members of team RWBY were about to intervene before the doctor beat them to it.

"NO, GENERAL IRONWOOD! You can't take of his mask!", the doctor almost screamed.

"Why not?", said the general, irritated at the interruption.

"It was what I was going to tell you about before he woke up. He wears that suit and mask for a reason. The scans revealed that this creature has an incredibly weak immune system. Being exposed to the open air and all its bacteria, while that would hardly faze a human or Faunus body, to his body, it could be fatal. He would suffer from an acute allergic reaction. The suit protects him from bacteria and any other such infections", the doctor explained.

After that tidbit of information, the room became silent with everybody now looking at the alien with sympathy and pity.

Team RWBY were all shocked.

'I thought it was just his space suit. But that's actually … kind of sad', Ruby thought sadly, thinking of having to live in a suit like that for your entire life.

'No wonder he was so panic stricken by the general trying to remove his mask', Weiss thought with similar thoughts to Ruby.

'That must be really difficult, to have to live like that", Blake thought, sympathetic to the alien's situation.

'Man, that's kind of depressing. I'm not sure I could live like that for my whole life', Yang thought, feeling sympathy for the alien and not envying his position.

After hearing that, the General decided against his course of action and backed up.

Talo removed his hands from his face and dared to open his eyes. The majority of the strange people were all looking at him with sadness and sympathy in their eyes, leaving him confused.

'Why are they sad for me?', Talo thought curiously. Then, he noticed one of the people approaching him but slower this time. This one appeared to be the youngest out of all of them, younger than him by a few years. She, like the other people in the room, were similar in appearances to Quarians. Her hair was black like his own but had red highlights, she had strange silver eyes, pale skin and was wearing a red cloak. But, unlike the tall, imposing man before, this girl seemed gentle and kind and as she approached him, Talo slowly got to his feet.

Ruby didn't really know what she was doing she decided to approach the alien and quite frankly, neither did her team. But, when she saw this alien, afraid of everything around him, she wanted to help him.

Ozpin simply thought when he saw her start to approach the alien and stopped Glynda from stopping Ruby, 'well, Miss Rose, let's see you work your magic".

The two members of the same species approached each other until they were standing in front of each other. The alien towered slightly over her as he was the same height as Yang so she had to look up and when she did, she offered a kind smile and simply said, "it's okay"

Talo looked down at the small girl in front of him and although he couldn't understand what she was saying, he understood what she meant and he could tell that this girl was a kind, gentle and genuine soul. His eyes softened and Ruby could see the understanding in those orbs.

And so, she offered him her hand and after looking at his own, the alien slowly put forward his own and grasped the girl's outstretched hand. When the two hands met, Ruby slowly shook hers and in response, the alien followed suit, picking up the custom. Both of them looked at each other happily.

Ozpin, Glynda and the rest of Team RWBY looked at the young leader with proud smiles.

'One of the many reasons why I appointed you as leader, Miss Rose: your never ending kindness', Ozpin thought as he witnessed the quite beautiful moment.

Team WBY looked at the scene with pride.

Yang especially.

'It seems that every day she becomes more and more like her mother', Yang thought, referring to Summer Rose and her similar kind nature. 'Look at her, a kind and mature wom-'

"SO, I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS FOR YOU. WHO ARE YOU? WHAT SPECIES ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU FROM? WHAT WEAPONS DO YOU HAVE? BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH ..", Ruby rambled as she started shaking the now baffled Quarian's hand at the speed of light.

Everyone just had sweat drops on the back of their heads as Ozpin lets out an amused sigh, Glynda and Weiss let out sighs of irritation, Blake facepalms and Yang just thinks, 'nope. It's still Ruby and she is still a little kid.'

Eventually, Ruby's big sis decided to save the alien from the fate of being asked 100 questions.

"Okay, little sister, I think you nee a time out", Yang says amusedly as she drags the hyper leader away from the alien as she reaches out with big hands and her eyes comically become white circles.

Although Talo was slightly baffled by what was going on, he did find it rather amusing and he let out a laugh that earned the smiles of the red and black haired girl and the yellow haired one who dragged her away.

Now that, that was all out of the way, Talo realised that these people didn't mean him any harm. However, he wasn't sure about the tall man who'd intended to remove his ask. But, he still couldn't tell what they were saying and they couldn't tell what he was saying. He had to find a solution, a way to update his translator and a way for them to understand him. Looking around what appeared to be the infirmary, he saw in the hands of one of the girls in the room, the white haired one, was a device that looked like it was their version of an omni-tool but more primitive. But, it would suffice.

Weiss watched, surprised, when the strange alien approached her and began making signs with his hands while gesturing at her scroll.

"I think he wants your scroll", Blake said, interpreting the signs.

"Why mine?", asked the heiress, a bit miffed.

"Weiss, just give it to him", said Yang slightly impatiently.

Weiss sighed in annoyance and reluctantly handed the machine over and the alien made a sign of gratitude.

Then, to the humans surprise, something orange appeared on his right arm, it looked like an orange screen.

"OMG", squealed Ruby.

"What is it?", Ironwood asked, more worried than the others in the room.

"If I were to hazard a guess, I'd assume that would be his version of a scroll", Ozpin theorised.

They all watched him do work on the scroll and the strange device on his arm and after a minute, he handed the scroll back to Weiss and it had no apparent damage. Then, he proceeded to ask the humans (or sign to them) to take out their own scrolls and hold them and they complied.

"What exactly is he doing", asked Glynda, confused as to what was going on.

Then, the alien proceeded to reveal his orange machine again and points it at them while he activated what appears to be a switch. Then, on the humans' scrolls, there appeared a progress bar. Very soon, it filled up and when it did, all the humans felt a slight zap and tingly feeling as if they just received a static shock.

"Ah, what the heck was that?", Yang almost yelled at the sudden shock.

"I apologise but it was the only way that we could all talk to each other", said a slightly timid voice.

All the humans froze and slowly turned to the source of the voice. It was the alien, he was talking English!

"So, er, hello", said the alien nervously.

"YOU CAN SPEAK ENGLISH?", Weiss shrieked.

Talo slightly recoiled at the sound before he responded, "well, technically, no."

This confused team RWBY.

But, once again, Ozpin saves the day as he says, "I think he means that while to us, he may be speaking English, from his point of view, he's speaking in his own language."

"Yes", the alien replied. "That programme I sent to your devices is a translator and when you touched it, it sent a charge into the language centre of your brains, meaning now when you hear me, you hear me speaking in the language you are most familiar with even if I'm speaking in my own language. At least as long as you have your devices close to yourself, it will work. It's the same for me with my device as I used your device to download your language into my translator. Even though you are now all speaking your own language, I hear you speaking in my language. It makes communication easier."

Everybody else was in awe of the technology while Talo looked away in slight embarrassment.

Ozpin was the next to talk.

"Well, now that we can communicate with each other, I believe introductions are in order", he announced and so he approached the alien and said, "it is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Professor Ozpin."

Ozpin, huh? Talo looked at the man in front of him and could tell that he was an enigma but also a kind man.

A smile formed on Talo's face but it couldn't be seen by the others but they could see the softening of his eyes.

"Well, it is nice to meet you too, sir. My name is Talo'Zorah Nar Rayya but you can just call me Talo of Talo'Zorah", Talo happily responded.

"Now, may I introduce you to your saviours," Ozpin replied.

"Saviours?", Talo asked inquisitively with a tilt of his head.

"These 4 girls here saved you from your crash site. There are many creatures out there who would have had far more sinister intentions", Ozpin said gravely.

Talo was reminded of the reason why he had crashed and shuddered slightly.

"This is team RWBY, the hyperactive one is Ruby Rose", Ozpin introduced.

"Hi!", Ruby said happily, making Talo smile and chuckle.

"The young lady whose device you borrowed, which we call a scroll, is Weiss Schnee."

"Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. A pleasure", Weiss said while curtsying while the other three girls rolled her eyes at her actions. Talo responded with a bow, thinking that was proper. She certainly seemed pleased by it.

"The girl with the bow is Blake Belladonna"

The black haired girl simply gave her head a nod and Talo responded similarly and the girl had a small smile in response.

"And finally, this young lady is Yang Xiao"

"Hey, Talo, how's it yanging?", the girl punned to the chagrin of the others … except one. Talo found her pun funny as he chuckled. Having downloaded the internet on Weiss's scroll, Talo had learnt about concepts like puns and he honestly found them funny. Yeah …. He doesn't have a good sense of humour, just like Yang.

Yang was surprised but pleasantly while the other members of team RWBY wore horrified expressions and Ruby thought, 'oh no, there's another one'.

Ozpin then continued to introduce the inhabitants of the room.

"This woman is Glynda Goodwitch, this man is General James Ironwood and this is Doctor Rouge, he has been looking after you since you got here".

Talo greeted Glynda, showed an appreciative glance towards the good doctor but he looked slightly less happy when he greeted the General.

The General, seeing his discomfort, decided to appease him.

"Talo'Zorah, I apologise for trying to remove your mask. I didn't know about your immune system at the time but thankfully, the doctor warned us before I did", Ironwood apologised sincerely.

Talo relaxes his stance, saying, "apology accepted", willing to let bygones be bygones.

"Well, now that introductions are out of the way, I think it is time that we all get some answers", Ozpin said, addressing the issue of how everybody is clueless.

"Of course, sir. How do we do this?", Talo asked the headmaster.

"I suggest we take turns asking questions. You go first and we'll go next. How is that?", Ozpin inquired.

"That's fine", Talo said.

And with that, everybody takes a seat and Talo begins the round of twenty questions.

"So, er, where exactly am I?", Talo asked, looking around the white room.

"Well, you are in Beacon Academy, in the Kingdom of Vale, which is on Sanus, the largest continent of our planet, Remnant."

Remnant. That's the name of their planet.

'A bit of a strange name', Talo thought.

"Now, my turn. What exactly are you, Talo?"

"Oh, my species are called the Quarians. We're a race of engineers. We are possibly the most gifted engineers in the galaxy, not to brag"

Ruby was especially excited about that statement, seeing as how she is an absolute gun nut.

"That's quite a statement, Talo", Ozpin said to the quarian.

"Well, it is the truth. Now, my turn. What species are you?"

"We are humans, one of the dominant races in this planet along with the Faunus. The Faunus look like us except they each have an animal trait. My turn."

Ozpin decided he might as well indulge the question that James no doubt wants to be asked.

"Talo, why exactly are you here?"

"Oh, I'm on my pilgrimage"

"A religious journey?"

"Oh, no. That's your definition. Our pilgrimages aren't religious in nature. You see, our species are nomadic, we live in a flotilla, a fleet of ships. Ours is the biggest in the galaxy with 50,000 ships. There are 17 million Quarians onboard our ships so conditions are cramped and everybody has to pull their own weight."

"Makes sense", Ozpin said although he and everyone else wondered why the Quarians are nomadic.

"The pilgrimage is a sort of rite of passage that every quarian goes through when they become of age. They leave the flotilla behind to find a gift that will help our people and when they return, the pilgrim presents their gift to tier chosen captain and if the captain accepts, the pilgrim becomes a member of that captain's crew. If you remember from before, my name is Talo'Zorah Nar Rayya. Talo is my first name, Zorah is my clan name while Nar Rayya means born on the Rayya. But when the pilgrim returns and offers their gift to the captain and is accepted, the Nar is replaced with Vas which means crew member of."

Everybody was interested by this and everything else that Talo was saying.

"As for how I arrived in your planet, well I had just left on my pilgrimage with my ship and when I entered you system, I was attacked by pirates. I was able to give them the slip but their weapons had damaged an important part of my ship which meant I was stranded in this part of the galaxy. I had to find a viable planet to land on where I could work on my ship and your planet was the only option. So, I headed for you planet but as soon as I arrived, I was attacked by a –"

"Giant bird", Ozpin finished Talo's sentence.

"Yes", Talo replied, shocked. "How did you know?"

"Professor Goodwitch and I were spectators of your encounter with the bird and your crash. It was how we knew about you."

"Oh", Talo said, slightly embarrassed to know that someone had witnessed his crash. His face felt little hot. Thank the ancestors that they can't see my face.

"There's no need to feel embarrassed", Ozpin said kindly.

"Who says I'm embarrassed?", said Talo a little loudly, his face even hotter now.

"I'm assuming you fiddle with your hands when you're embarrassed"

Talo looks down and realises that he was doing it again. Stopping his persistent habit, he put his hands on his lap, feeling glad no one could see his atomic blush.

"Moving on. What exactly was that thing that attacked me ?"

In response to this question, Ozpin's visage became serious as well as the visages of the other humans.

"It was a Nevermore, one of the creatures of Grimm", Ozpin said gravely.

Talo was confused but could tell that this was serious topic. "Grimm ?"

"The Grimm are a race of creatures that come in all shapes and sizes and they are the bane of our existence, here on Remnant. No one truly knows how the Grimm came to be. There are stories but what is agreed is that there's nothing good about the Grimm. They are creatures of darkness, hate and destruction as they live solely to kill humans and Faunus alike."

Talo felt shivers run down his spine as he recalls the monstrous bird that attacked him. What had scared him so badly was not it's size or it's deadly feathers; it was the amount of hatred in its eyes. Ozpin was right. The Grimm were pure evil.

"Now, my turn". Talo was brought out of his thinking by Ozpin's voice and prepared to answer his question.

"You said the Quarians are nomads. Why is that exactly ?"

Oh. Talo was admittedly hoping that this question wasn't asked. This was a sensitive topic for the quarian race.

Seeing his discomfort, Ozpin said, "you don't have to answer if you're not com-".

"No, it's okay, Professor. This is just a sensitive topic for my people. You see, around about 300 hundred years ago, my people lived on our home planet called Rannoch and we didn't have to wear these suits. But one day, our ancestors decided to build a mechanical workforce to serve them so using their knowledge of synthetics and engineering, they created the machines that they would call The Geth, which means Servant of the People".

"THEY CREATED ROBOTS TO SERVE THEM. WHAT, WERE THEY LIKE AI ?", Ruby squealed, her inner nerd emerging.

"No, they weren't AI because AI is actually illegal. They were instead very advanced VI which is short for Virtual Intellignce. The difference between VI and AI was that VI can only do what they are programmed to do but AI are more freethinking. As time went on, our ancestors advanced the geth, making them do more advanced tasks but not turning them into true AI. But, unbeknownst to them, the geth, who were linked by a network, slowly started to gain sentience. They had become a new form of synthetic life."

By this time, Talo's tone became sadder.

"Why do I get the feeling this won't end happily ?", Blake asked worriedly.

Talo continued, "When they had gained sentience, the Geth started to ask their masters questions of their existence, asking if they were alive. Our ancestors became terrified because they believed that if the geth had gained sentience, they would start to view their status as slavery and the Quarians as the enslavers and would inevitably rebel against their creators. With that in mind, the Quarians decided to destroy the geth and like a species that has been threatened, the geth responded with violence. There was a long conflict and our race lost as billions of Quarians died while the remaining millions fled on their ships, chased away by the geth. We had lost our home world to our own creations."

Everyone was silent as they absorbed all this info.

"After that, things only got worse as our species lost its status because of our ancestors's carelessness. We tried in the past to find a home but our options were limited and they were being claimed before we could. Eventually, we gave up and became nomads. This would only worsen our fate as spending our entire lives on our ships, over the course of the years, had an effect on our immune systems. They became weaker because of the sterile environments of the ships and so we are forced to wear these suits for all our lives or we will die. Finally, because we created the geth and are nomads, Quarians are considered second class citizens and there's lots of bigotry towards us. We are seen as thieves and vagabonds, insults like "suit rat" are common. So, there you have it. The history of the quarian race. The reason why our race suffers to this day."

Talo finished and silence hung in the air. The humans already felt sympathy for the plight of the Quarians but this was honestly rather depressing. Ruby actually felt her eyes glisten (bless her heart), Weiss wouldn't admit it but she was saddened, Blake felt a companionship with the Quarians since she has faced bigotry in her life because she's a Faunus and Yang felt anger towards those bigots who would hate a race for the mistakes of their ancestors. Ozpin felt even more sympathy, Glynda's eyes had softened, Doctor Rogue was the same and even Ironwood felt pity for the nomadic race.

"I think that's enough questions for now", Ozpin says, finally breaking the silence.

"Now what, Professor", asked Weiss.

"Well, Talo here sadly can't leave our planet seeing as how his ship is in need of repairs. So, I'd say he needs our help."

Talo looked at Ozpin in shock.

"Y-you would really help me ?", Talo asks hopefully.

"Of course we will", Ruby responds kindly. "It's our duty as huntsmen and huntresses to help people".

"Huntsmen and .. huntresses ?", Talo asked, confused by the terms.

Ozpin answered, "the ones responsible for holding back the Grimm and protecting the people of Remnant. This academy we are in, Beacon, is deigned to train young people, like Team RWBY here, to become the next generation of huntsmen and huntresses."

Talo looked at the proud Team RWBY in awe.

'These girls are training to become warriors to fight creatures like that giant bird', Talo thinks in awe and slight disbelief. 'But, then again, I was taught to defend myself since I was young. But I wasn't taught to fight giant monsters.'

While Talo was immersed in his thoughts, Ironwood approached Ozpin and asked, "what are we going to do about the public ? We can't exactly keep him a secret for long, people will notice something is going on and someone will notice him and before you know it, reporters and journalists will be boarding the next Bullhead to see the alien."

Thinking over this, Ozpin came to a conclusion.

"Everybody !", Ozpin calls, getting everybody's attention.

"Talo, we can't show you off to the whole world. It would cause so much chaos. But we can't just keep you a secret either because people will find out about you eventually and it's worse for this type of information to be leaked."

"So", Ozpin continued, "Team RWBY, your mission now is to be Talo's guardians while he is here. One of you has to be with him at all times and you must keep him a secret from everyone else in the school while he finds a way to leave the planet, apart from the teachers. I will inform them of the situation.

"Sir", Blake said, "with all due respect, I doubt we'll be able to do that forever"

"Yeah, we end up getting caught sooner or later", Yang said, agreeing with her partner.

"I know. Which is why, in a week's time, we will reveal Talo to the school. Like I said, we can't keep Talo a secret forever but we can't tell everyone or it'll be pandemonium. Talo, do you agree with this plan ?"

Talo sighed, "a lot can go wrong with this plan but … alright, I'm in".

"And, Team RWBY, do you accept this plan ?", continued Ozpin.

"YEAH !", "He'll be our responsibility", "Of course", "Heck yeah".

Receiving confirmation from all parties, including a nod from Ironwood, Ozpin finally said seriously, "Now, nobody must breathe a word of this to anyone who is not in this room. No friends, no family, no one. Understood?"

Receiving confirmation from everybody, Ozpin relaxes and says, "Well okay then".

And with that, Ruby ran up to Talo with her super speed, shocking him slightly, she takes his hands in her own and with her infectious grin that Talo can't help but copy, she says, "this is going to be great!"

As soon as she said that, Ruby rushes out of the room, dragging Talo along with him to their room with the sounds of "be careful" and "don't be seen" as the rest of the team trail behind.

With spirals in his eyes thanks to being dragged along by a supersonic Ruby, Talo can't help but think, 'Oh Keelah, what have I gotten myself into?'

**AND DONE!**

**Oh my God. This took forever to write, it felt longer even though the last chapter had more words. Probably because of all the speech. Yeah, this was a very heavy speech chapter with lots of lore but it had to be done and anyway, our loveable quarian has met the girls. What's going to happen from here on out? **

**Also, thank you to those who have reviewed and followed my story so far. It motivates me to do more and I feel glad that some people are enjoying my writing wherever they are. I'd appreciate any feedback and I apologise if my writing seems amateurish or if there are an errors.**

**And with that out of the way, peace!**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'M BACK! Now, here's the fourth chapter! Also, I'd like to clarify a few more things as someone made a review which asked about the alliance. Ok, Remnant is pretty much Earth and in this version of reality, there is no alliance or at least not yet. That's why Talo didn't know what humans were as humans haven't joined the galactic stage yet. But they will and thanks to Talo, there won't be a first contact war like in Mass Effect. Also, in terms of combat, even though humans have access to aura and all that, it doesn't mean they are going to be op. The alien weapons will more effective against aura than human weapons and their armour will be just as durable as the human's aura. They will take the galaxy by surprise but they will be equal with the alien species. But, it is thanks to aura that the council will see humanity as an asset and it'll be the reason why they get an ambassador so quickly like in Mass Effect with Udina (even if he was a corrupt bastard). I'm thinking of keeping aura as a Remnant exclusive concept (basically, the two brothers only created Remnant and its people and nothing else in this universe, everything else was created naturally), seeing as how the Mass Effect universe is already a complex place with protheans and reapers. I don't really know how I would work the Brothers of Light and Darkness so, aura won't be accessible by the alien species but that doesn't mean that they don't have souls. Aura is defined as a manifestation of the soul and the people of Remnant still don't know much about it but anyway, thank you to ArchAngel319 for that review.**

**As for the whole Salem deal, as I already said, her faction doesn't really exist. In this version of reality, she was actually killed by the brother of darkness when he destroyed humanity and Ozpin was simply brought back and cursed with immortality/reincarnation until the time comes when Ozpin can summon the brothers back to Remnant with the four relics so they can judge humanity. But, obviously, he can't do that yet with all the conflict in the world and then, there's the Grimm. So, yeah. As for his group, it's still a thing but instead of Salem, the things that they keep secret from the rest of the world are the most dangerous Grimm. The ones that make nevermores look like tweety bird in comparison. Qrow is still a spy for Ozpin but he simply monitors the Grimm and so was Raven and simply left after seeing how powerful the Grimm are, not Salem. As for Amber, she will be fine and Pyrrha won't have to go through the whole dilemma of inheriting the Fall Maiden's powers (speaking of the maiden****s****, they will be on par with some of the most powerful biotics if you want to compare how powerful they are). Finally, regarding Talo's views on synthetics, AI etc, he's obviously going to be uncomfortable around things like the Atlas mechs and as for Penny, he will warm up to her. Tali in Mass Effect was initially hostile towards the geth like Legion but warmed up to them and the Quarians made peace with the geth. I'm making Talo more understanding and lax when it comes to synthetics but that doesn't mean he won't be without worries, concerns and he'll likely react badly to synthetics (but don't worry, he won't end up despising the (ass kicking) cinnamon roll known as Penny. I doubt that's even possible.)**

**Also, I apologise if I mess up how much time there is until the Vytal Festival cause I don't actually know how much time there is between the end of volume 2 and the start of volume 3. Cause I also want to give Talo time to get to know everyone, be introduced to the students and I've also got my own sequence of events in store for later on.**

**Sorry for all that text but I decided to clarify some more details. Also, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT SO FAR! I didn't honestly think I would get this type of reception.**

**Also, sorry about the delay. I've been busy. But I'm compensating with a longer chapter.**

**Anyway, enough of me rambling and boring you, now, ON WITH THE SHOW!**

**Team RWBY's dorm**

It was Talo's fourth day on Remnant and he had to admit, this wasn't what he was expecting when he had set out in his pilgrimage. At the moment, he was sitting in the room of his, er, bodyguards, chaperones etc, Team RWBY. It was currently midmorning with the sun, high in the sky. As for the Team, they were all about the room, minding their own business. Weiss was doing work at the table, Ruby was playing around with a wooden thingy that had an elastic piece of string attached to the middle which was also attached to a small red ball **[see RWBY Chibi season 3 episode 1]**. Blake was sitting on her bed, reading, though Talo did see her eyes drift from the pages every now and again and focus on Ruby's red ball with an almost dopey look on her face before she regained her composure and went back to her pastime. As for Yang, the blonde brawler was playing a game on her scroll, a look of intense concentration on her face with her tongue sticking out of her mouth.

Basking in the silence, Talo couldn't help but reminisce about the past couple of days. They had been … interesting, to say the least as he learned more about this planet and its inexplicable nature.

**Flashback time!**

_The door to Team RWBY's room burst open as a red blur, followed by a violet blur passes through the door way at light speed. These blurs were Ruby and Talo, having just left the infirmary. When they arrived, Talo had to take a few seconds … or minutes to process what just happened._

_As for Ruby, she had her eyes closed and was bouncing up and down on the spot, thinking over what she should do with the Quarian. She opened her eyes and that's when she saw Talo, evidently shaken by something._

_Ruby, confused, asked, "Is there something wrong, Talo?"_

_Talo looked at her like she'd just grown a second head._

"_Is there something wrong?! Are we not going to talk about the fact that you just moved faster than any living creature should be capable of?!", he almost yelled incredulously, instead keeping his voice down so he doesn't attract any undue attention._

"_What do you mean, that was just my semblance?", Ruby replied, confused by Talo's attitude towards her speed._

"_What's a semblance?", Talo asked, genuinely confused._

"_Wait, do you not know about aura?", Ruby asked, genuinely surprised._

"_No, I've never heard of this aura stuff."_

"_Oh", Ruby said simply before continuing, "well, we don't actually know much about aura but we believe it is a manifestation of the soul. When it's activated, aura can protect you as well as be used as a weapon. Also, each person who has their aura released has what we call a semblance, a power that's unique to each person. Mine is my speed."_

_Now, normally, if Talo was told all that, he would scoff at it and call out the person on their bluff but having seen a giant, evil bird almost kill him as well as a tiny girl just move so fast she could have broken the sound barrier, he was willing to accept what would be previously would've thought was impossible._

"_Oh … well, my people and none of the other species know anything about aura or semblances", Talo repeated and just as he'd finished, the rest of Team RWBY arrived, having ran all the way from the infirmary. Yang and Blake looked fine, hardly winded while Weiss was breathing slightly more erratically, having the least stamina (and by stamina, I mean running stamina, not any other stamina you might be thinking of … or that might just be me having a dirty mind) out of the three._

"_You dolt, what if somebody had seen him?", Weiss reprimands her partner for her reckless behaviour while she shuts the door behind them._

"_But nobody did", responded Ruby carelessly._

"_Yeah, just give Rubes a little slack", remarked Yang, leaping to her little sister's defence once again._

_Weiss just facepalms, quietly muttering, "why do I even bother?" as Blake just shrugs at her rhetorical question._

_Ruby then decided to tell the girls about Talo not knowing about aura._

_After Ruby relays the information, Blake approached Talo suddenly, stood in front of him and placed her hand on his shoulder, startling him slightly._

"_Uh … excuse me, Blake. What are you doing?", asked Talo, standing awkwardly while the secret Faunus stood in front of him with her eyes closed._

"_Yeah, Blakey, what are you doing?", asked Yang before her tone turned teasing._

"_Trying to put the moves on him already, huh?"_

_Talo's face grew hotter by quite a few degrees in response to that comment while Weiss reprimanded the blonde bombshell for her remark._

_Finally, Blake opened her eyes and Talo could then see a confused expression on her face as well as a light blush, no doubt from Yang's comment earlier._

"_For your information, Yang", Blake said slightly annoyed, "I was checking his soul and I found something peculiar. He does have a soul, I felt it so I tried to unlock his aura but I felt nothing."_

_That confused the girls slightly._

"_I guess … aura is Remnant exclusive", Weiss theorised._

"_It seems so", Blake agreed with the heiress._

_Though strange, the group didn't focus on it for too long._

_Talo, feeling quite curious, inquired, "Well, I know that Ruby has super speed but what are your semblances?"_

_Talo was certainly interested after getting over the fact that people on this planet effectively had their own super power … it was pretty cool._

_Hearing this, Weiss straightened herself up and with her dignified pose, she explained, "well, my semblance is actually hereditary. It runs in my family, the Schnees. I am able to create glyphs, which have a variety of uses like being used as shields or platforms and I can combine dust with them to create other effects like time dilation."_

_Then, Blake decided to divulge next._

"_My semblance is pretty simple. I am able to create solid copies of myself and like Weiss, I can use dust to create different types of clones"._

_Finally, Yang explained her unique power._

"_I'm pretty much a juggernaut. I can absorb the energy from every hit I take and then I use that energy in my attacks to make them even more powerful. Pretty cool, am I right?", Yang finished with a cheeky grin on her face._

_Honestly, Talo thought these were all "pretty cool"._

_After that, silence dominated the room as no one knew what to do next. Until the silence was broken by Ruby._

"_Anyway", the team leader said …. before Mount Ruby erupted, "WHAT SHOULD WE DO FOR THE REST OF THE DAY?! OH, I KNOW! I HAVE A LIST OF FUN THINGS THAT WE CAN DO AND WE CAN TRY AND FIT TALO INTO THE. SOMEHOW! OH, THIS WILL BE SO MUCH FUN. OKAY, THE FIRST ACTIVITY IS –"_

"_Sorry, Rubes. It's 6 PM", Yang said, cutting Ruby off as she pointed to the clock._

_And with that, Ruby's expression did a 180 degree turn as her face of pure excitement became crestfallen. It was indeed 6:00 in the evening. Time had passed since Team RWBY has been anxiously waiting to meet the alien that they rescued and now, the plans Ruby had for today had to be put on hold._

_Pouting, Ruby whined as she walked sulkily to her bed, saying, "I wanna go cuddle with Zwei"._

"_Er, what's a Zwei?", Talo asked._

"_He is", said Yang while putting down near Talo's feet._

_That's when he heard a bark come from his feet which slowly drew his eyes to the floor where he saw it._

'_Zwei' was a small, furry creature, standing on four legs with a small tail, small, beady, black eyes and two pricked up ears._

_Zwei let out another bark and in response, Talo let out a little yelp and he jumped so high, he landed on one of the top bunkbeds, balanced precariously on top of another with only a few books and rope supporting it._

_Seeing the startled Quarian jump that high made Yang laugh while Weiss was to busy fawning over the adorable corgi._

"_What's wrong, Talo? He's just a dog", Yang said to the Quarian, teasingly._

"_Yes, well I'm sorry that I've never seen a "dog" before. In fact, I've hardly ever seen an animal before. We don't exactly have the space on the flotilla", Talo replied with a little bit of snark._

_Yang dropped the teasing and started to act more kind._

"_Don't worry. He's not gonna hurt you. Just come down and pet him", Yang said, trying to convince Talo to give Zwei a chance. _

_The Quarian looked at Yang with uncertainty but seeing her calming expression, Talo cautiously stepped down from the bed. As for Zwei, he approached the bed slowly as well, looking curiously at the new creature in front of him while his tail wagged. Once down, the Quarian approached the currently calm corgi, kneeled on the floor and then tentatively, he extended his three digit hand to the corgi and began to stroke his fur. The feeling was unlike anything he'd felt, having grown up on ships and being an engineer. It tickled his fingers through his suit and it was the softest thing he had felt in his life. In response to the stroking, Zwei's tail wagged more enthusiastically and then suddenly, catching Talo by surprise, the dog started licking his visor, showering the alien with his affection. Despite his visor being covered in saliva, Talo couldn't help but smile at the small animal._

"_Huh, he likes you", Yang remarked, smiling happily. "Dogs are good judges of character, especially Zwei. If he likes you, you're good." _

_Turning his attention away from Zwei, he saw Ruby still having her minor sulk fest while Weiss continued to shower the corgi with affection. But, Blake was missing. Then, he looked up._

_Blake was crouched on the other top bunk bed, looking down at the canine with distrust and a bit of fear. _

"_Er, is there something wrong with Blake?", asked Talo worried._

"_Don't worry about her. She's just being a scaredy cat", Yang said in a teasing tone. Strangely, it sounded like she was making a pun and considering, Blake was both cringing and glaring at Yang for the statement, he figured that she was._

'_But why … and what is a cat anyway?', Talo thought confused._

_Blake could see the confusion in the alien's eyes. So, with a sigh, Blake decided she would divulge her secret to the alien. Usually, she wouldn't do so with somebody she'd just met but after hearing the similarities between the Faunus and the Quarians, regarding discrimination, she felt that he was a kindred spirit. Also, he seemed like a nice person._

_So, jumping down from her perch like a cat, she reached for her bow. Weiss, Ruby and Yang stopped what they were doing and their jaws dropped at Blake's action._

_With a sigh, Blake announced, "Talo, I have something I need to tell you."_

_With that and a deep breath, she pulled the ribbon and it came undone, revealing what was hidden beneath. A pair of cat ears which twitched and the exposure to the air._

"_You see, I'm a Faunus, one of the people with an animal feature that Professor Ozpin mentioned"._

"_Oh. Ok", Talo said simply._

_Even though Blake knew that Talo wouldn't judge her because of her ears, she didn't expect him to take it so easily. She expected some form of surprise. Unless, he already knew?_

"_Did you already know I was a Faunus? You don't seem particularly surprised", Blake asked suspiciously._

_Talo decided to reply, "Well, honestly, with everything I've seen on this planet so far, I'm honestly not that surprised that you have the ears of an animal. Also, I did see your bow twitch before so I thought that there was something off about it."_

_Blake flushed in response to the last sentence while the other three girls had amused expressions._

"_But I do have a question. You kept your heritage a secret. Why would you casually reveal it to me, someone you just met?", Talo asked, genuinely confused._

_This caused Blake to look at him with a sad smile._

"_Because my race is similar to your race. We both face discrimination"_

"_What!?", Talo said in disbelief._

"_It's true", Blake said sadly, "Faunus face bigotry from many humans. Just like how your face does. I suppose you could say that we are kindred spirits. I kept my heritage a secret because although there are many people in this academy who are prejudiced towards Faunus, there are still those who hate Faunus for simply existing. Until the day comes that people will stop needlessly hating the Faunus, I will wear this bow. And until the day comes when I can take the bow off, I wish for people to see me for who I am and not what I am._

_Talo was … touched by this. He honestly didn't think he would find a kindred spirit on this unknown planet. A people who suffer bigotry like the Quarians. He felt empathy for Blake and the other Faunus._

"_Thank you, Blake, for sharing this with me. This obviously is very important to you and the fact that you'd reveal to me … it means a lot", Talo said gratefully to the now revealed Faunus._

_In response, Blake smiled and the other inhabitants of the room felt pride towards their teammate for entrusting her secret to another person. Well, one of her secrets at least. Her past as a member of the White Fang would have to come in later._

"_By the way, what animal features are those?"_

"_They're cat ears", Blake responds._

_Yang the whispers to Talo, "cats and dogs don't like each other. That's why she tried to escape from Zwei. And why I called her a scaredy cat."_

_Blake glared at her partner whilst Yang laughed and Talo couldn't help but snigger a little at that fact._

_After that little heart to heart conversation, everyone realised that it had gotten even darker and it was time to get ready for bed. With that in mind, the girls took turns to go into the bathroom to change into their sleepwear, obviously not being comfortable with changing in front of a guy, even if he was an alien (there was the exception of Yang who took sadistic pleasure in teasing Talo, giving him an atomic blush and making him babble like an idiot). Once they were prepared for sleep, Talo was provided with a spare mattress for him to sleep on. Taking residence on the mattress which was much more comfortable than the bed he was used to on the flotilla, before going to sleep, Weiss decided to give Talo a quick lesson on Remnant as she told him about the kingdoms, the settlements outside the kingdoms, Menagerie, the Great War as well as the Faunus. While the others blocked out Weiss's droning about Remnant, Talo found it fascinating to learn more about the planet he was currently stranded on. But, eventually, all inhabitants of the room began to drift of into the world of sleep and Morpheus' embrace._

_**The next day**_

_Daylight burst forth from behind the curtains that were suddenly drawn, hitting Talo in the face which woke him from his slumber. The culprit was Ruby._

"_GOOD MORNING, TEAM RWBY!", she yelled, startling Talo slightly, "and company", she finished._

_While the other girls had annoyed expressions, still not having gotten used to Ruby's ability to be so cheerful in the morning, Talo wasn't actually that bothered. He was used to getting up at obnoxious hours after only a few hours of sleep. In order for the flotilla to function, it must be maintained regularly so the captains have to run a tight ship and sometimes crew members have to sacrifice a few hours of sleep._

_In fact, he was so used to getting up after only a few hours of sleep, he's surprised that he didn't get up first. It was probably due to the bed. Unlike the beds in the migrant fleet, the mattress was actually comfortable and although Talo had gotten used to sleeping on a metal surface, he had to admit that he just the best sleep he has had in his entire life._

"_I swear, one of these days, Ruby, you're going to push me over the edge", Weiss said through gritted teeth with a muscle twitching in her forehead._

_Talo also thought he heard Blake mutter something about whistles while Yang looked the most chilled out of the three of them._

"_C'mon, Weiss, we have a whole day ahead of us with Talo. We're not going to waste all that time, lying down in bed like a coach potato", Ruby said, trying to motivate Weiss to get out of the comfort of her bed._

_While all of this was happening, Talo started looking around the room. He'd been a bit too busy yesterday processing all the information on Remnant that he was given and as a result, he didn't notice that the girls' room was quite big, at least from his point of view._

"_What's up, Talo?", Yang asked Talo, noticing his silence._

"_Just appreciating how big your room is"_

"_What, you think this is big?", Yang asked the quarian._

"_It may not be to you but it is to me. My race has roughly 50,000 ships that house 17 million people. Saying that conditions are cramped is an understatement. We don't have much room in our quarters and usually we have to take turns using a bed which are also not very comfortable. Also, the fact that we have to get up only after a few hours of sleep to help maintain our ships doesn't help matters__. __Honestly, last night was the best sleep I've ever had."_

"_It's that bad?", Ruby asked._

"_It's isn't as harsh as it sounds. We get by, we just have to be … pragmatic about things. It's why we don't have pets and also a couple can only have one child or we risk overpopulation", Talo explained before continuing._

"_Though I do admit that it can be trying even when you do get used to it. It's why I was so excited to go on my pilgrimage"._

_But before their conversation could go further, a knock could be heard from the door, followed by a male voice._

"_Hey, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, are you guys awake?"_

_Silent panic appeared on the faces of the girls._

"_It's Jaune", Ruby whispered._

"_Talo, we need to hide you. No one can know about you yet", Blake whispered to the alien._

_Nodding in understanding, Talo quietly went inside the walk in closet, hiding among the clothes while Yang moved the mattress under her bed, out of sight._

_With Talo's presence successfully hidden, Ruby opened the door to their .. visitors._

_Peering through a gap in the closet, Talo could see Team RWBY's guests._

_Their was a guy with blonde hair like Yang but his was short and messy while his eyes were blue and he was wearing a hoodie, a pair of jeans and he had pieces of armour over his top. This was Jaune Arc, leader of Team JNPR._

_His companions included his partner, Pyrrha Nikos. She has long red hair, tied into a ponytail while her eyes were emerald green. She was wearing an outfit that made her look like a spartan warrior._

_The other girl was the shortest of the four and she had short, ginger hair as well as turquoise eyes. She wore a white top with a heart shape hole in it and she also wore a pink skirt. This was Nora Valkyrie._

_Finally, the other boy of the group had black hair with some pink highlights while his eye were pink. His outfit consisted of a green top and white pants. This was Lie Ren, Nora's outfit._

"_Hey, Ruby", Jaune said before looking concerned, "are … you okay?"_

_Now Ruby Rose was many things like a capable warrior and leader. But there's one thing she isn't: a good liar. She couldn't tell a lie without feeling guilty and she couldn't keep a surprise because she would always want to spoil it. And right now she was sweating as if it was 50 degrees Celsius, her eyes were darting about the place nervously while her mouth was set as a permanent, unnatural grin. Simply, she didn't look comfortable._

"_Er … er", Ruby stammered, unable to form a sentence._

_Then, Nora Valkyrie appeared in front of the leader, grabbed her by the shoulders and started shaking her around like a rag doll._

"_WHAT IS IT, RUBY? ARE YOU SICK? DO YOU NEED PANCAKES?", Nora yelled in Ruby's disorientated face with a huge grin on her face._

_While Nora shook Ruby like a maraca, Pyrrha asked Ren, "Ren, could you please do something?"_

_Having known Nora since childhood, Ren was an expert in reeling in the beast known as Nora so with a sigh, he approached Nora and decided to save Ruby from her fate._

"_Nora, if you stop shaking Ruby, I'll make a hundred pancakes for you later"._

_Hearing Ren's offer, it was like Nora had Ruby's speed as she instantly let go of the poor leader and turned to Ren and beamed at him._

"_WITH SYRYUP?!", Nora asked loudly and hopefully in his face._

_In response, Ren nodded and just like that, with an "ok", Nora appeared beside the rest of her team as if nothing happened._

_At that moment, Jaune, Pyrrha, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang wondered how the two of them were friends seeing as how they were complete opposites and also wondering how he learned how to control Nora like that. Talo, from behind the closet door, couldn't help but admire the stoic boy's patience as he had only seen this Nora for a minute and he could tell she was a handful._

"_Anyway", Jaune said, "why was Ruby acting so weird?" _

_Ruby stiffened but before she could crack and reveal something, Blake came to the rescue. _

"_You know that we were missing yesterday?"._

_In response to Blake's question, the other team nodded their heads._

"_Well, Professor Ozpin gave us a mission. It's incredibly important and it's classified. The Professor says that we will be able to reveal it in a week. And you know that Ruby can't keep her secret or tell a lie to save her life so she's trying to control herself", Blake said, explaining their absence yesterday and Ruby's oddness._

"_A mission?", Pyrrha asked, "it must be incredibly important"._

_With that, Ruby seemed to deflate in relief as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders._

"_Well anyway, we came here to ask you if you want to come with us into Vale. Even though people are still recovering from the breach, there's still things to do and we could fit in some down time before the festival", Jaune said, explaining their visit._

"_Sorry", replied the Ice Queen known as Weiss, "we have some work to do regarding our secret mission"._

_Jaune seemed to deflate a little when he heard what Weiss said before he regained his smile._

"_It's cool, we can hang out some other time", said Jaune hopefully, though he seemed to be taking specifically to Weiss._

"_Sure", said Weiss sarcastically, knowing what Jaune had in mind._

_With that, Jaune walked out of the room, sulking over the fact he didn't get to hang out with Weiss while Pyrrha waved goodbye and then she went to consoling her leader. Nora let out a loud obnoxious bye while Ren nodded silently before departing after his team._

_Talo stepped out of the cupboard while the girls sighed with relief._

"_Man, how could we forget that Ruby can't tell a lie to save her life", Yang said, frustrated at herself._

"_Well I'm sorry that I don't like being deceitful!", Ruby said indignantly._

_Talo couldn't help but praise Blake though for her quick thinking._

"_Good job, Blake. That was some quick thinking."_

"_Technically, were supposed to keep you a secret, Talo, not the fact that we have a top secret mission", Weiss said, understanding Blake's actions._

_Blake smiles while saying teasingly, "it's a better plan than hoping that Ruby can tell a lie, seeing as how the chances of that happening are non existent."_

_The others couldn't help but laugh, even Talo since he could see from that one incident that the team leader couldn't even try to be deceitful. Ruby's face turned a healthy shade of red._

"_You jerks", Ruby said while pouting._

_Their laughter was cut off by the sound of a message being sent to Ruby's scroll. Taking out her device, she checked the message._

"_It's from Professor Ozpin. He says that there's something for Talo in one of the storage room for him. Storage room 5", Ruby recited._

_Talo looked at her confusion._

"_For me?"_

_With that, Ruby took Talo by the hand, rushed out of the room with her semblance and arrived at the storage room. Although Talo has to take a moment to keep his stomach's contents inside. It's not good, throwing up inside your helmet._

"_Why did you do that, Ruby?", Talo asked incredulously._

"_Duh, Ozpin has something for you and it must be good. I wanna see it!", Ruby said with childish excitement in her eyes._

_Shaking his head, he pushed the door open and froze._

_It was his ship. Sure, a little damaged but, his ship._

_Talo felt a grin form on his face as he approached his vessel._

"_My ship! Thank you, Ozpin!", Talo almost yelled gratefully._

"_How did he get it in here from the Emerald Forest?", Ruby asked._

"_Who cares?!", Talo asked rhetorically, too immersed in admiring the view than to question the details_

_Then the door behind them opened as the rest of the team entered. They too were confused as to how Ozpin got it here but they too ignored the details._

_While the five of them looked at the ship, they heard a *grumble*._

_Team RWBY turned to the source; a sheepish looking Talo._

"_I, uh, may be a little bit hungry", Talo said while wringing his hands together. _

_Talo was used to not getting to eat regularly just like the rest of his people due to the lack of resources and the fact that children and other certain Quarians need more food than the others. Also, technically, a quarian could last a long time without sustenance and he could technically go for longer without food but he decided to treat himself. _

_Entering his ship, he found in a compartment a tube of paste and a bottle of sterilised water with a straw (or emergency induction port if you ask drunk Tali). Taking them out of the ship with him, Talo prepared to dig in but was interrupted by the girls who looked slightly disgusted._

"_Er, Talo, what exactly is that stuff in the tube?", Yang asked, unnerved by the strange looking paste._

_Weiss and Ruby has looks of disgust as well while Blake's is more of a less severe grimace._

"_I know, it doesn't look appealing but this is what my people have to eat. It's a paste that has been sterilised. It's also made for people who are made of dextro proteins like Quarians", Talo explained to the girls._

_The girls remembered the doctor taking about how Talo was made of a different protein to them. _

"_So, you're made of "dextro" proteins?", Weiss asked._

"_Yes, there are two types of proteins that people can be made up of. While my people are dextro based, other species are made of levo proteins. But, because of how different there proteins are, dextros can't eat levo based food and vice versa"._

"_The doctor said that you were made up of a protein that we know nothing about, one different to ours. It stands to reason that we are levo based", Blake summarised._

"_It seems so", Talo said as he inserted the tube into the circle beneath his visor, allowing him to eat the paste._

"_Sure, it's not the best food in the world, it does the job", Talo said, content with his meal._

_The he turned to his sterilised water as he inserted the straw and began drinking._

_Yang snorts as she looks at Talo drinking._

"_Ok, I'm sorry but that looks really weird", Yang muttered as she looked, trying to hold in a snigger._

"_Thanks, Yang", Talo deadpanned as he finished his water._

_Ruby asked, concerned, "are you sure that's enough?" _

"_It's fine, Ruby. On the flotilla, you get used to not eating much. Besides, that paste may be bland but it's incredibly nutritious", Talo reassured Ruby, smiling underneath his visor at her concern._

"_Well, what now?", inquired Weiss as to their next move._

"_Well, I think I better start working on my ship. I have enough food to last me a few months, longer if I ration but that doesn't mean I should stay here for long. Luckily, most of the worst damage is superficial as the engine is fine. The exterior just needs a patch job. The problem is the FTL Drive."_

"_What does FTL mean?", Yang asked, confused as to the meaning of the acronym._

"_Faster Than __Light__ travel", Talo responded while taking out his tools._

_Thus, Talo spent his time working on the ship, patching up the outside of the ship with the resources he had on hand. While doing so, he talked to the girls about FTL travel, the mass effect relays and that led to him talking about the protheans. All girls were stunned by the topic of the protheans and also confused as to how such a prominent race would just disappear, almost 50,000 years ago. Ruby fangirled, Weiss stared incredulously, Blake's eyes seemed to be popping out of her head and Yang's naw dropped when he showed pictures of the relays as well as the citadel on his omnitool. He grinned at their expressions with amusement. Thankfully, they couldn't see._

"_Are you grinning at us?", Weiss asked suspiciously._

…_. damn female intuition._

_Moving past that question, he proceeded to talk about the citadel and the council. Blake looked particularly affronted when he talked about how there were only three council members, representing three of many races and that the Quarians had been stripped of their embassy because of the creation of the geth and their rebellion._

_Remembering the geth, Ruby decided to ask the alien a personal question._

"_Hey, Talo, what do you think about the Geth? Or synthetics in general?", she asked tentatively._

_Talo froze in place._

"_Well, um … I'll admit, I'm not sure what I feel about the Geth. My people have very strong feelings about the Geth, for almost all of them, they are negative. Many blame the Geth for the Quarian's fate and I will say that I feel some resentment towards them. But, unlike most people, I like to look at the other side of the argument. I think that my people overreacted to the Geth's sentience and if they'd been more sensible, actually taken responsibility for the geth instead of try to kill them, maybe we wouldn't have been driven from Rannoch. I know that the geth are victims but I also can't forget that I'm stuck inside a suit for the rest of my life because they drove my people into exile. As for other synthetics, I haven't met any and I doubt I will, seeing as AI is highly illegal", Talo voiced his opinion sadly. He wanted to sympathise with the geth unlike most of his people, knowing that their ancestors had made a mistake but that didn't change his people's position at the moment._

_He felt a hand gently touch his shoulder and he turned, seeing a pair of sympathetic silver eyes. Ruby looked at him in sympathy, Weiss' face softened slightly, Blake had a similar look in her eyes as Ruby while Yang, the usually cheerful blonde had a small frown on her face._

_Wanting to lighten the mood, he said, "though I know that if I did meet another AI, I wouldn't judge it. That'd make me no better than every bigot who hates Quarians even when they haven't met one"._

_In response to this, Ruby had a bright smile__, __Weiss had a smirk, Blake seemed to have a proud look and Yang's frown was turned upside down into a grin._

_Deciding to divert away from the topic of synthetics, Talo announced, "I'm going to show you something"._

_Reaching into his ship, he pulled out an object which made stars appear in Ruby's eyes while an excited grin split across her face._

_It was a shotgun. An alien shotgun. _

_Weiss, Blake and Yang turned to look at their leader in worry. She was drooling slightly._

_Talo, oblivious to what he had unleashed, said, "well, this is my Kata-"_

_He was bowled over by a red blur aka Ruby who then started to babble._

"_OHMYGOSHTHISISAMAZING!WHATISIT?WHERECANIFINDONE?" was just a portion of the gibberish that Ruby started spewing at light speed at the slightly scared quarian._

_Over the babbling of the lunatic known as Ruby, Yang said to Talo, "she's a weapon enthusiast! She loves them, fawns over them!"_

'_More like she covets them', Talo thought while a sweat drop was on the back of his head._

_But, then, the alien realised the position the two of them were in when he saw Yang's inappropriate look and Weiss and Blake's blushes._

_Ruby was oblivious because she was too busy fawning over the shotgun but she was straddling, Talo on top of his stomach. With a massive blush on his face, he tried to get Ruby's attention to escape the mortifying situation._

"_Ruby."_

_More babbling._

"_Ruby._

_Still more babbling._

"_RUBY!"_

"_What?", Ruby finally responded calmly as if she wasn't just raving like a madwoman._

_He gestured for her to look down and so she did. And promptly her face became as red as a tomato._

_She hopped off him quickly while repeatedly saying sorry._

"_It's fine, Ruby", said Talo as he stood up._

"_Anyway, as I was saying before, this is my M-23 Katana IV. As you can see, it's. Shotgun which I'm pretty skilled at using. It's not the most impressive shotgun but for me, it's better than anything I could've asked for", explained Talo while looking at his gun fondly._

"_So, Ruby", said Talo after his explanation, "you're a weapon enthusiast?"_

_Blushing slightly in embarrassment, she responded, "yeah, I mean, they're just so cool, they're like extensions of ourselves."_

_Talo was surprised by the philosophical statement from the usually childish girl._

"_Is your interest limited to weapons?", Talo asked curiously._

"_I mean, I really like engineering as well. I mean, I made my weapon and it was one of the best times of my life, especially when I completed it", Ruby said, while almost wistfully reminiscing about the past._

"_Well, if that's the case, do you want to help me with my ship?"_

_All four girls were stunned and then, Ruby started sparkling._

"_Really?", she asked, excited._

"_Sure, just follow my instructions", Talo said, smiling._

"_Yes, sir!", she yelled while saluting._

_As for the other three, they knew when they became third wheels._

"_Well, we'll leave you two nerds to it", Yang said teasingly as she walked out, followed by Blake._

_Weiss has the last word as she said, "Don't do anything stupid." Though that comment seemed directed more at Ruby than Talo._

_Both engineers started working on the ship, Talo showed Ruby the tools he used and what had to be done. Talo was impressed by Ruby's skills as an engineer as she took on everything he told her and she proved herself to be a help. Using the resources he was given by his people, Talo and his assistant were able to fix the superficial damage to the ship. Eventually, the ship looked like it hadn't been damaged at all when they'd finished. When they turned to the clock to see the time, they were surprised to see just how much time had passed as it was already evening. Time really does fly when you're having fun._

_Both agreeing that it was time to return to the dorm, Ruby took Talo's hand and she dragged him along when she used her semblance to the dorm. Having gotten used to the speed, Talo didn't have to spend as long maintaining the contents of his stomach._

_To pass the time, Talo and Ruby talked about engineering as Ruby said that most weapons on Remnant had the ability to shift from one type of weapon to another, surprising Talo while also intriguing him. Talo talked about the weapons that had been created, assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles and weapons with a bit more power behind them. Ruby was slightly drooling when he told her about these weapons which simultaneously amused and unnerved him._

_Eventually, the rest of Team RWBY returned, looking sweaty and tired. Apparently, they'd been training for some sort of festival. Talo remembered that Jaune fellow talking about it._

"_What exactly is this festival?", asked Talo after all the girls had showered and changed into their sleepwear._

_Weiss, being the cultured individual she is, decided to enlighten the Quarian._

"_The Vytal Festival is a celebration of peace between the four kingdoms after the Great War. Every two years, one of the kingdoms opens its doors to the rest of the world and they host the festival where people can meet and experience different cultures. Every two years, the responsibility of hosting the festival rotates. This year, it's the 40__th__ Vytal Festival and it's Vale's responsibility to host it"._

_Talo was amazed that something like that existed. There was hardly any peace in the galaxy and all the species aren't exactly buddy buddy like the Krogan with Turians and Salarians._

"_But why exactly are you training for it?", Talo inquired, confused._

"_There's a fighting tournament where teams from all the academies fight each other in controlled matches as a way to test our skills. Symbolically, the tournament is a reminder to all students to always strive to do the best they can do. It's very entertaining", Weiss explained further._

_Talo didn't know how fighting could be entertaining but considering the use of aura and semblances and these changeable weapons, it certainly doesn't sound like your typical brawl._

_Eventually, all inhabitants of the bedroom started to drift off into the world of sleep once again._

_**The Next Day**_

_On the Monday morning, Talo found himself woken by not Ruby but Yang._

"_Yang? What are you doing? I thought you didn't like getting up early", Talo said, noticing that there was little light outside and the other three girls were still asleep._

"_That's for the weekends. Usually, we have lessons on weekdays but with the upcoming festival in a few weeks, we've been given time to train. But that also means we have 5 more days to do whatever we want. And I want to show you something", Yang whispered to the alien excitedly._

"_Um, ok", Talo said hesitantly._

"_Don't worry. It's 6 AM. You won't be seen. Hardly anyone is up this late", Yang reassured the quarian._

_With that, Yang and Talo sneaked out of the room and the bombastic brawler led Talo to a room on the ground level of the school and he instantly knew where they were, recognising the big metal shutter._

_It was a garage. Just like the ones on the citadel like he'd seen in pictures._

"_Yang, why are we here?", Talo asked, confused._

_Yang developed a grin on her face as she told him to wait outside while she entered. After a few seconds, he heard her yell for him to come in._

_Pushing the door open, he strode in and saw what all the fuss was about. Yang was sitting on a type of vehicle with two wheels one a narrow frame. The frame of the machine was black and yellow. Though he had to admit, even if he had no idea what it was, it was a pretty damn good looking vehicle. So good looking he didn't realise that Yang had made herself look particularly uh … provocative. She'd taken her tan jacket off and was left in her yellow top which showed quite a bit of her very generous cleavage._

"_Like what you see", Yang teased with a cheeky smile._

_Not properly paying attention, Talo said, "I admit, I do"._

_He was referring to her vehicle but when he looked up and saw her suggestive pose and look, his face turned atomic red and became so hot, steam was likely to start coming off his head. _

"_N-n-no, I was talking about your vehicle, not you. I-I-I mean, not that you're not pretty because you are. I – Keelah, Yang!", Talo stuttered, trying not to offend Yang._

_In response, Yang let out a bombastic laugh and you could see a few tears of laughter in her eyes. She got off her vehicle, put her jacket on and said to him, __"you're just to easy to tease"._

"_Well, I'm so glad you like making me squirm", Talo snarked._

"_Alright, I'll stop yanging you around", Yang punned before laughing jovially._

_Talo tried to fight it but slowly his frown was turned upside down and he started laughing as well._

"_Hah, it's good to find someone else who appreciates comedy. I thought it was just me and my dad", Yang said after finishing her laughing fit._

"_Anyway, do you wish to introduce me ?", Talo questioned._

"_Well this is my motorbike, Bumblebee", Yang introduced Talo to her "baby"._

"_Motorbike ? Bumblebee ?", Talo asked, confused by the foreign words._

"_Well, a motorbike or motorcycle is pretty much a vehicle with two wheels. It's a more advanced version of another vehicle called a bike or bicycle. Unlike a car, it can cut corners much easier and it can go faster than a lot of cars. As for the name, Bumblebee is an insect that's yellow and black so, yeah, I named her bumblebee."_

_Now, Talo was caught up. There were no motorbikes on the citadel, only cars. That float. Unlike the cars of this world which worked like land vehicles._

"_So, I'm assuming you brought me down here to more than just meet Bumblebee ?", Talo guessed._

"_You catch on quick", Yang said with a huge grin on her face._

"_You're an alien so obviously you know a lot about advanced tech and all that. Well I want your help to improve Bumblebee", Yang said._

"_So will you help me ?", asked Yang hopefully._

_Talo was once again shocked by one of these girls. Of all people, she asked the alien that she's just met to help her. Sure, it was because of his knowledge but still. He was touched once again. With that in mind, he decided to heed Yang's request. Besides, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't interested._

"_Sure, why not ?"_

_Yang's response was that of a brightening face, a bigger grin as well as a fierce bear hug._

"_Thanks, man. I promise I'll pay you back some how"_

"_S-sure", Talo responded as he was slowly crushed by Yang's brute strength._

_Realising what she was doing, Yang let go with a sorry and a sheepish rub on the back of her head but Talo let her no it was no problem. Also, he kind of enjoyed it. Yang was freakishly warm like a living sun._

_With that, the two of them went to work. Talo took a look at the inner workings of the bike and was impressed even if it was primitive. Yang clearly took great care of her bike as it was so clean in places, the light shone which reflected off it shone like the sun. While examining the bike and having Yang inform him about the unfamiliar structure, Talo was able to make some mental notes about how it could be improved. It would have to be heavily modified and a lot of parts would have to be replaced with parts from more advanced species. More durable metals could be used and the engine could be modified so that it could be more efficient as well as use more powerful fuels. It was all theoretical and most of it would require resources he didn't have at the moment but he could make small changes now._

"_Well, Yang, I've thought of how you could improve Bumblebee. And sadly, a lot of it requires materials that I don't have or may never have. I'm sorry", Talo admitted sadly, feeling terrible at failing Yang._

"_Hey, it's fine, T. I didn't think you'd be able to do much with hardly any resources", Yang said, not looking upset in the slightest._

"_BUT … I can make some changes now", Talo said to the brawler._

_With that, he continued his work and started working on the engine. Then, after that, he started working on the handles._

_After a few hours of work, Talo had finished._

"_Well, Yang, it's not much but I managed to improve the handling on your bike so you'll be able to make those turns even easier now. As for the engine, I made it more efficient, using the fuel more efficiently than before, making it more cost effective. I know it's not much but I have limited resources", admitted Talo._

"_Hey, as far as I'm concerned, you improved Bumblebee so you've done right by me. So, don't worry and thanks for this", Yang said gratefully to the quarian._

"_No problem, Yang. I'll come see Bumblebee again sometime. And I promise, when I can finally leave, I'll find a way to get those resources. Then I'll come back and make Bumblebee even greater. That's a promise", Talo promised to the blonde girl._

_In response, the girl was shocked before she started to grin and then she playfully punched him. Which almost broke his arm. _

_After that, the two of them returned to the room but when they reached it, Yang bid Talo farewell as she went to the gym. He entered the room and was greeted by the sight of Blake sitting in her bed, reading. Her bow twitched in response to the opened door but she didn't take her eyes of her book, she was quite immersed in it._

"_Hello, Blake", Talo greeted the cat girl._

"_Where've you been?", she asked inquisitively._

"_I've been working on Yang's bike. She wanted me to see how it could be improved"_

"_Oh", Blake said simply._

_Silence hung between the two people and Talo wasn't sure how to break it. He's been able to tell that Blake was not the most talkative person, being very reserved. But, he couldn't stand this awkward silence. So, he decided to talk about the one thing that seemed to interest the ninja._

"_What's it called?", Talo said suddenly._

_Blake looked up in confusion._

"_Your book", said Talo, gesturing towards it, "What's it called?"_

_Blake answered hesitantly, "It's called the Man with Two Souls. It's about a man who has two souls that are fighting over control of his body."_

"_You know, in the galactic community, we don't actually have books anymore. We used to in the past, there have been records of some species including my own having used books. Nowadays we have electronic novels but they apparently don't have the same feel as an actual book. I've never actually held a book before. How does it feel?", Talo asked._

_Blake was stunned. He seemed genuine. Honestly, while she loved reading, she preferred to read a book and not an electric novel as there was always something about holding the paper in your hands that felt nice. More so than holding a tablet._

_Blake decided to answer his question._

"_Well, it's … difficult to describe but I think it's nice to hold a book in your hands. It sort of feels … soothing", Blake answered, unsure of how to describe the sensation._

_Blake then decided to ask Talo a question._

"_So, you're a reader?"_

"_Yep, whenever I could, I would purchase an electronic book. It was usually only for my birthday since I couldn't just waste the flotilla's funds on my personal belongings. I'd get one every year and I'd love it. But, I always wanted to read an actual book, see if there was a difference."_

_Blake was further shocked but also delighted. She'd finally met someone who was interested in literature as her. Not only that, but he'd never held a book before. Blake knew she couldn't let this go on._

_Closing her book, she stood up, took Talo by the hand, and dragged him over to her bookcase._

"_Pick a book", Blake said to the Quarian._

"_A-are you sure? You don't have to do this because of me", Talo stated._

"_It's fine, Talo. Just pick a book and enjoy yourself", Blake said with a smile on her face._

_With her confirmation, Talo hesitantly reached out towards a book. _

"_Hm, what's this one .. "Ninjas of L-", Talo read before the book was swiped from the short by Blake._

"_Except for this one", Blake said, strangely with flushed cheeks and embarrassed sideways glances._

_Talo was confused by her behaviour but ignored it and instead picked a book from the shelf. Holding it in his hands, Talo felt the book, tracing it with his fingers. Also, even though he wore a helmet, he was still able to smell the scent of the book. It was this old, strange smell, it was strangely calming. Talo thought that this was a thousands times better than an electronic book. _

_Thus, Talo and Blake spent the next few hours reading books. Talo loved it so much more than an electronic book as he turned the pages with his hand. It helped that the plot of the book was engaging and even though some Remnant terminology hindered his reading as he searched up things that he didn't know with his omnitool connected to the local network. The hours passed quickly and he finally finished his book._

"_Wow", Talo stated simply._

"_How was it?", Blake asked, amused._

"_It was … great. Different but great. The plot was good, the characters were relatable and just holding book was great. Books really are better than the electronic version", Talo admitted._

"_Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It … was fun. Just sitting here and reading. You don't realise how few people appreciate literature", Blake revealed._

"_Well, I say that they're missing out", Talo declared before admitting to Blake, "also, I wouldn't mind reading again with you"._

"_I'd like that as well", Blake responded, smiling at the alien._

_Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Weiss who sat down at her desk and started working._

"_Does she ever stop working?", Talo dared to ask Blake quietly._

"_Doubtful", Blake replied._

_If Weiss heard them talking about her, she didn't acknowledge it._

_Then, the door was busted open and the culprit was Ruby who had Zwei with her._

"_Hey, guys. I was taking Zwei out for a walk. I'm just gonna leave him here now while I go find Yang in the gym. See ya!"_

_And with that, the hyperactive leader ran off, leaving behind some rose petals in her wake._

_Blake suddenly got up and ran straight out the door, avoiding the adorable corgi looking at her._

"_Blake, where are you going?", Talo asked the ninja._

_She gave a short answer as she dashed out the door, "library"._

_Talo was left alone with Weiss and Zwei. And he had no idea what to do. Weiss was definitely the coldest out of all the girls and hadn't had much personal experience with her unlike the others girls. He still didn't know much about her._

_He looked at Zwei, thinking,__ 'Zwei, what do I do ?'_

_The dog just looked at him while panting before curling up and falling asleep._

_Narrowing his eyes at the betrayal, Talo thought, 'so much for loyalty'._

_Then, he heard the sound of a book closing and saw Weiss stand up and make her way to her bed where she sat down._

_Silence._

'_Keelah, this is worse than the silence with Blake. At least, with Blake, I knew how to start a conversation. I don't know anything about her at a-'_

_Talo's train of thought was cut off when he realised that he did know something about her. Who was the one who gave him all the information when he didn't know what something meant like the Vytal Festival? Who was the one who's always working? Weiss loves knowing things. She loves learning. As well as teaching._

"_Hey, Weiss. What work were you just doing?", Talo asked the heiress suddenly._

_The heiress looked surprised by the alien's sudden interest but then she schooled her expression._

"_It was an assignment about different types of Grimm. It's due for after the Vytal Festival, when lessons resume", Weiss explained._

"_You really seem to like working. Or just learning in general", Talo stated._

_Weiss seemed to inflate as her expression turns proud as she stated, "well, it's something that I pride myself on. I seem one of the only ones on the team that take their studies seriously as Yang and Ruby constantly leave their work for later. But, I'll admit. I don't really mind helping them._

"_Why's that?", Talo asked, genuinely interested._

"_You see, after we passed the initiation and became a team, I was slightly bitter about the fact that Ruby, a girl who was two years younger than me, was made my leader. I was frustrated by her lack of seriousness, at seemingly not understanding the seriousness of what a huntress is. So, I lashed out at her and said some hurtful things", Weiss recounts, while looking regretful._

_It was the first time he'd seen such an expression on the usually proud girl's face._

"_After that, I went to see one of my teachers and told him that I felt I should have been team leader. And he said that that was ridiculous. He then explained why. He said he trusted Professor Ozpin's judgement and that I wouldn't make a good team leader with my …. Personality. He said I was someone who'd always gotten what I wanted because I'm the heiress to the largest producer of dust in the world. Which isn't completely true", she added on the end with a sad look on her face before continuing, "he said that I should focus on what has happened, not what could've been. So instead of trying to be a leader, I should be the best teammate I can be. And if that means having to help them with their work then so be it. Because even though they drive me up the wall, they are my team and I care about them,", Weiss finished with a genuine smile._

_Talo was … speechless. Weiss usually portrayed herself as purely an arrogant little girl. But, the truth is that she's actually a truly good person. _

"_But don't you dare tell them that I said any of that", Weiss said sharply with a cold glare._

…_. And there's the Ice Queen again._

_Still, Talo smiled._

"_By the way, could you tell me about the Schnee Dust Company?", he decided to ask._

_After hearing that, Weiss had a smile on her face as if she'd been told to do the most wonderful thing in the world, "ah, it would be my pleasure"._

_After that, the two of them began a game of teaching each other. Weiss told Talo about how the Schnee Dust Company was found by her grandfather, Nicholas Schnee who was once a dust miner and grew to be the founder of one of the most successful companies in Remnant. But, when Nicholas had retired, Weiss' father, Jacques Gélé at the time, approached Nicholas and convinced him he was the best candidate to take over the company and so, Jacques married Nicholas's daughter and became the new head of the company. After that happened, the successfulness of the company skyrocketed as more profit was coming in but the company's morality plummeted as Jacques used illegal tactics to make profit. When talking about her father, Weiss turned sad and so, Talo decided to move on and decided to tell Weiss all about life on the Flotilla and quarian government. They talked and talked about more and more topics, feeding each other information. It was actually quite enjoyable for both parties._

_But, then when it became late, Ruby, Blake and Yang had returned and the two of them decided to leave it there. Each of the girls showered and changed into their pjs and drifted off into the land of dreams, ready for tomorrow morning._

**Flashback over (FINALLY)**

Having finished reminiscing, Talo looked at the 4 girls around the room. He'd spent time with them personally and learnt much about them. Ruby, the childish leader, was a fellow engineer with a keen mind for tech, a weapon nut and also incredibly kind. Weiss appeared as an arrogant princess but was hardworking, loved to learn and is willing to help her teammates in any way she can. Blake entrusted her secret as a Faunus to Talo as both are from races that suffer bigotry, she's a keen reader just like him and she's a similarly kind person. Finally, Yang is bombastic, likes to tease people and is a fellow engineer like Ruby though only on her bike but she's also mature, kind and bright.

They all had their quirks but had been kind to him for all of his stay. They saved his life in the Emerald Forest because he doubts that he could've survived on his own. They even agreed to watch over him for the week.

He'd grown close to the girls and he had to ask the question.

"Girls, can I ask you a question?"

Ruby stopped playing with her paddle and ball, Weiss looks up from her work, as did Blake from her book and Yang pauses her game.

Talo was silent for a moment before asking, "do you think that we are friends?"

The response was instant.

"Of course, we are", Ruby said kindly, looking at him with her soft, silver eyes.

"What did you think we were?", Weiss asked while rolling her eyes but having a minuscule smirk on her face.

"You're not just a mission for us to complete", Blake said kindly with her smile on her face.

"Yeah, what Blake said. You're actually a really good guy", Yang said with her signature grin.

Talo just sat their in thought. On the flotilla, it's like a family. Talo grew up surrounded by people but he hadn't really ever had a friend. Sure, he knew people on board the Rayya but he wasn't that close to them. We just worked together for a common goal, maintaining the fleet. He'd never truly had a friend before, not someone you could talk to and not someone he could do stuff with. All he ever had was his father (even though he was hardly there), mother (until she died) and Raan. So when he learned that this warm fuzzy feeling he felt with Team RWBY was friendship, he couldn't help but smile and say, "Thanks, Girls".

**AND DONE!**

**OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!**

**Longest chapter so far by a mile. I'm sorry if you don't like my whole flashback thing, I wanted to try and tell the story a bit differently. I don't think I'll doing it again, or at least not in the foreseeable future. **

**I thought it would make sense that Blake would be more comfortable showing her secret to someone who will suffer bigotry from other species. It may be too soon in some people's opinion but it's what I think. **

**Also, as for romance, I'm having the girls and Talo click as friends first. He'll have time with each girl like working on the ship with Ruby, teaching things to Weiss and vice versa, reading with Blake and working on Bumblebee with Yang in the future. They're not going to start falling in love immediately and not so soon. This stuff realistically takes time. Moments of embarrassment and teasing from Yang are just that and nothing more. But, later on, there will be lots of embarrassment and teasing from Yang that'll have meaning behind it.**

**Anyway, I hope you guys like the extra long chapter to make up for lost time.**

**Now, I have nothing left to say except, peace!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I'M BACK!**

**I'm starting this a few days after I uploaded the last chapter. Writing over 10k words can be exhausting while also trying to make things interesting. Also doesn't help that I was busy. But I'm at it again.**

**So, last time, we had a massive flashback, Talo spent time with the girls as a group and individually and he had confirmed that they are friends. Happy days! In this chapter, there'll be some more teaching on Talo's end as we approach the big reveal to the academy. I'm looking forward to having Talo move about the academy without worrying about being caught … but it doesn't mean that things will be smooth sailing. It's pretty much high school. Nothing is ever simple there.**

**Also, thank you to everyone one has followed, favourited and reviewed this story. You guys motivate me to continue. Thank you so much.**

**Speaking of which, thank you to PhoenixClaw2128 about the review, concerning lore. It's some really good advice. I admit it seems redundant to have to repeat the lore in dialogue after doing it in text and while I won't change any of it in chapter 2, you're going to be seeing some lore from Talo. So, THANK YOU SO MUCH! I really appreciate the feedback.**

**And with that, all I have left to say is, LET'S GET ON WITH THE SHOW!**

It was Wednesday. Talo's 5th day on Remnant during the late afternoon. Currently, the quarian in question was lying down on his mattress, looking at his omnitool and working on a side project of his that he'd been working on since a few days before his pilgrimage. His very own customised combat drone. Currently, he was developing the program for the drone, uploading strategies and its ability to register commands. He was close to finishing it. After that, he'd have a fully functioning combat drone buddy to fight for him.

While he was working on the drone (he was going to give it a name but he had yet to decide), Talo's mind kept drifting back to the day before, to the moment just after his question to the girls about being his friend. It had been on his mind and for good reason.

**Flashback time!**

"_Thanks, girls" is what Talo just said to the girls who confirmed their friendship._

_Outwardly, he appeared calm and happy._

_Internally …. Talo was cheering and the child inside him was bouncing up and down faster than Ruby using her semblance while drinking coffee. While it may seem inconsequential to others when people call them their friend, to Talo, it was anything but. Talo was always a bit of a loner and was slightly awkward when it came to social interaction, especially when meeting new people. As a result, he was introverted, didn't actively seek friends and while he worked with other Quarians on the flotilla, he made hardly any actual friends. It didn't help that his father and aunt were two of the admirals and that he had his own issues like his mother dying when he was young and his father being absent pretty much all the time. It didn't have a positive effect on his self esteem and confidence and made him even more of a loner. To distract himself, he would throw himself into work to become an asset to his people and whenever he wasn't working, he was doing his own thing. It was quite strange for a Quarian not to be sociable with other Quarians but then again, Talo wasn't a typical Quarian. _

_But, with the girls, it was different. For one thing, he was stuck with them most of the time and they also made active attempts to get to know him and he just decided to allow it. He normally would've avoided such things but honestly, he couldn't say no to them. It originally seemed like each members of the two species were interested in the other simply because they were aliens to each other. But, it evolved from that. Talo found that he had enjoyed teaching Ruby how to fix his ship, also talking to Weiss about different topics, reading with Blake and working on Bumblebee with Yang. They simply had a way of making you want to befriend them …. Okay, maybe not Weiss. _

_Still, Talo had to admit. Having friends. It felt good. And it was easy. Befriending them was easy. He just knew what each of them was interested in and he used that to strike up a friendship like his interest in engineering, desire to learn and his fondness of books._

'_If I knew it was this easy to make friends, I probably would have made some on the flotilla. Auntie Raan would've gotten off my back', Talo thought pensively._

_Auntie Raan. The person he promised that he would be safe. The same person he hadn't contacted for days. The same person who while appeared kind but also had a devil of a temper._

"_Oh Keelah", Talo whimpered._

"_What's up, Talo", Ruby asked the alien, worried when she heard his whimper._

"_I … may be in a lot of trouble", Talo said worriedly._

_All the girls looked up at that, both worried and confused._

"_What do you mean, T?", Yang asked._

"_I promised my aunt that I would contact her and tell her I was safe before I left .. and I haven't for the past four days. She's going to be so angry", Talo whimpered again, already fearing his aunt's wrath._

"_Oh come on, it can't be that bad", Weiss scoffed._

"_You don't know my aunt. She is kind most of the time but when you manage to tick her off, ancestors help you", Talo said gravely, actually making Weiss renege on her initial disbelief._

"_Ohh, I'd like to meet your aunt, Talo", Ruby said innocently with a big, naïve smile on her face._

"_I'm not so sure that's a good idea. She doesn't know about humans and I don't know what her reaction will b- URK", Talo was saying before making a noise that sounded like he choked on something._

_The source of his discomfort? The silver puppy dog eyes that were boring in to his soul._

"_R-Ruby, why are you looking at me like that?", Talo questioned, squirming uncomfortably under the piercing yet adorable stare from the silver eyed girl._

_Talo looked at the others but saw the looking at anything that wasn't Ruby. Weiss was focusing even harder on her work, Blake's eyes seemed actually glued to the pages of her book while Yang had some sweat in her forehead as she played her game._

'_You traitors', thought Talo at their perceived betrayal._

_Ruby started to look at him even more intensely and he felt his defences slipping in the face of the cuteness._

"_I-", Talo started to say before he was interrupted by the sound of knocking from the door, followed by a familiar voice._

"_Team RWBY, Talo, May I come in?", inquired the voice of Professor Ozpin._

_Ruby broke off the stare ('Keelah!', thought Talo, exhausted at the metal strain placed upon him by Ruby's stare), stomped on the floor while pouting before saying, "yes, Professor."_

_With that, the professor entered with his signature coffee mug and cane._

"_Well, hello, Talo, it has been a few days some we saw each other last", said Ozpin._

_The last he's seen of Ozpin was when he was being dragged out of the infirmary by Ruby._

"_It has, Professor", Talo responded._

"_How are you settling in?", Ozpin curiously asked._

"_It has been fine. Team RWBY have been very accommodating", Talo said happily as he motioned towards the girls. Ruby grinned happily, Weiss had a proud look, Blake smirked slightly and Yang had a massive, bombastic grin._

"_Well, I'm glad. I had feeling that they would be perfect for the job", Ozpin said gladly with a smile before it turned serious._

"_However, you may be wandering why I've suddenly dropped in like this", Ozpin stated to the group in front of him._

"_Is there a problem, sir?", Blake asked worriedly._

"_That depends on how you view what I'm about to tell you", Ozpin responded._

_The alien and girls became serious._

"_As I had already told you, Talo, you can't be kept secret forever as the public will find out soon when you slip up and get seen. It's better that we reveal you voluntarily and I'm here to tell you that on Thursday, I'm afraid that we'll have to show you to the school and no doubt the rest of the world", Ozpin said to the group._

_While they'd already known that the secret would be out soon, they hadn't really prepared for it, especially Talo._

"_Sir", Talo hesitantly began to say, "I'm prepared to show myself to the public. But, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous. Delicate situations like this can go very wrong", said Talo gravely, thinking about the geth rebellion._

"_I know but we really have no choice. General Ironwood agrees that the people need to know about this. However, first, we'll reveal you to the students from all the academies who came for the Vytal Festival. We will ensure that they stay quiet about it. As for the rest of the world, that will have to come later", Ozpin explained._

_Talo and the girls gave confirmation towards this plan. They all thought it was a sensible idea. But, then, Talo came to a decision._

"_Ozpin, there's someone that I want you to meet"._

_The girls looked at him in confusion while Ozpin's eyebrow raised._

"_My aunt needs to know where I am. With everything that's been going on, I haven't had the chance to call her about where I am and she's no doubt worried. I think I will need some help explaining the fact that I'm on a planet of people that no one in the galactic community knows about", Talo explained._

_Hearing that, Ozpin had a look of thought on his face before he looked Talo in the eyes._

"_Very well"._

_Hearing that, Talo activated his omnitool and prepared himself to contact his aunt._

"_Um, I wasn't lying to you girls when I said that my aunt has a temper when pushed. So, I'd think it's best that you don't show yourself to her immediately", Talo warned the girls as well as Ozpin._

_Turning his attention back to his omnitool, he hovered his finger above the call button, breathed deeply and pushed a button._

_He was hit almost immediately after a few seconds by a barrage of furious words, even before his aunt's face appeared on the screen of his omnitool with eyes burning with rage._

"_KEELAH, WHERE'VE YOU BEEN, YOU UTTER BOSH'TET! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW WORRIED I HAVE BEEN?! I TRIED CALLING YOU BUT YOU WOULDN'T PICK UP AND NOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN, YOU DECIDE TO CALL ME?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH I WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU?!"_

_The others were startled by the raging voice on the other side of the omnitool while Talo noticeably cringed as his hands rubbed together in anxiety. _

"_Man, she's kinda scary", Ruby whispered to the other girls who all nodded in agreement, slightly terrified of the voice._

_The voice of Raan continued to rage at her nephew for what seemed like hours but was actually a minute while Talo stood there and waited for her to run out of things to yell._

_Eventually, the voice stopped speaking and panting could be heard before she continued to speak._

"_Now … what is your excuse?", Raan asked calmly though the silent anger could be heard in her voice._

_Talo gulped nervously while silently reprimanding himself for not noticing Raan call him. If he had, he wouldn't be as in trouble as he is now. He made a mental note to not have his omnitool on silent from now on __**[yes, I just said that. I know it's not exactly a phone but whatevs].**_

"_Well, Auntie Raan … you see, a craaazy thing happened. I, uh, exited FTL travel and uh, I may have, uh … been attacked by Batarian pirates", he admitted nervously._

_Immediately afterwards, Raan started rambling and asking about her beloved nephew's safety though luckily, the spiel was short before Talo continued._

"_I'm fine, Auntie Raan, I managed to escape but, uh … there was a problem. My FTL Drive was damaged in the attack, meaning that I'm stuck in the system I'm in but … well, this is were it gets interesting."_

_Raan looked confused as her nephew said that._

"_You see, I was in the sol system and it's only viable planet is one called Remnant. And its people? They haven't encountered alien species before. I'm the first alien species to make contact with them", Talo confessed to his aunt._

_Silence. Talo could see her eyes display shock, disbelief and then … belief._

"_Auntie Raan?", Talo asked hesitantly._

"… _I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't make this up. I'm just … in shock really. No one really knows where they will end up when they go on their pilgrimage but, meeting a species that hasn't achieved space flight yet; that's a new one", Raan admitted while processing this information._

"_Uh, yeah, it is, heh heh", Talo nervously laughed before he continued._

"_Listen, Auntie Raan, I'm sorry I didn't call you. Arriving on this Remnant and a bunch of other events distracted me. But, I promise I will contact you regularly. I will", Talo apologised, giving Raan a guilty look._

_Raan sighed in exasperation before her eyes softened, as did her tone._

"_You know, I can't stay mad at you for long. Just don't worry me like that again, ok? I love you._

"_I love you too", Talo replied happily with a smile underneath his helmet._

_Ozpin and the girls, yes, even Weiss, couldn't help but smile at the familial bond between the two Quarians._

"_Listen, Auntie Raan, I want you to meet some of the people I've met. I was able to make a program for the translator so I can understand them and they can understand us. I'm sending you the program now", Talo said as he sent the program._

_After a few seconds, Raan acknowledged that she'd received Talo's program._

"_Okay, Auntie, I'm going to introduce you to them now", Talo informed his aunt._

_Now looking towards the humans in the room, he nodded and they returned the motion._

_With that, a red blur zoomed across the room and appeared in front of the omnitool._

"_Hi!", Ruby squealed innocently at the startled Quarian._

"_You dolt, you should be professional", Weiss scolded the leader as she appeared into the frame._

"_Hey, lighten up, Weiss Cream", Yang punned which Talo snickered in response, having encountered that pun before which Yang explained. The brawler walked in front of the screen._

"_Just stop", Blake deadpanned to her partner in frustration as she joined the group in front of Talo's omnitool._

_Ozpin decided to sit out for the time being._

_Raan processed what was in front of her. 4 alien girls. Raan has to admit that they looked a lot like Quarians compared to other species as they had a Quarian like shape and also had hair of various colours, including yellow._

_Noticing that the 4 girls were quite attractive despite being aliens, Raan had the urge to embarrass her nephew and so with a cheeky grin on her face and eyes filled with mirth, she decided to wind up Talo._

"_Wow, Talo. 4 girls. You certainly weren't this forward on the flotilla. Is there something I should know about?", Raan teased while grinning under her mask._

_In response, Talo's face went atomic red._

"_Auntie Raan", said Talo through gritted teeth._

_Ruby, Weiss and Blake also gained blushes on their faces. As for Yang, she gained a slight smirk, liking the teasing of the flustered Quarian._

"_Anyway", Talo said with his face losing the red tint, "these are my friends, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang". He gestured to each of the girls to show who was who._

"_Hi, Talo's aunt", Ruby said childishly._

"_Greetings", Weiss said with a professional demeanour._

"_It's nice to meet you", Blake said courteously._

"_Yeah, it's good to meet ya", Yang said, just as cheerful as Ruby._

_Raan had to admit that this was … an eclectic group. Ruby appeared childish, Weiss was professional, Blake appeared stoic while Yang was cheerful. _

"_It's nice to meet you all as well. Pardon me but I'm still getting used to the fact that my nephew is currently with an unknown alien species. Still, thank you for taking care of him. It means a lot."_

_Ruby responded, "it's ok. We were happy to do so. I mean, he's really nice and HE'S ALO AN ALIEN AND SO OUR YOU AND I JUST COULDN'T PASS UP THE CHANCE TO GET TO KNOW A REAL ALIEN, I MEAN IT'S JUST AMAZING!"_

_Raan chuckled in response to Ruby's naïvety. She could see that every one of these girls weren't a threat to Talo, even the slightly cold Ice Queen known as Weiss._

_Talo decided to get to the crux of the matter._

"_Listen, I did want to you to meet the girls but there's someone else. He's an important individual over here. He is going to talk to you about something important."_

_Thus, Talo had the girls move away from the omnitool after saying goodbye and he invited Professor Ozpin over._

"_Hello, ma'am. My name is Professor Ozpin. I'm currently watching over Talo during his stay here. It's a pleasure.", Ozpin said in a good nature._

"_Likewise", Talo responded genially._

_Ozpin then proceeded to explain the basics of Remnant. Let's just say that Raan was a little less easy to convince about aura and such until Talo chipped in, vouching for Ozpin, having seen Ruby's semblance several times already. Thankfully, his testimony was enough. Ozpin moved on to the fact that Talo was soon going to be unveiled to the students at the academy and then later the world._

_Raan's eyes radiated seriousness._

"_I have no problem with this but as long as you can guarantee Talo's safety. I know that there are many people who can be scared of things that are different and things they don't understand", Raan said worriedly._

_Ozpin grew a smile._

"_I promise that I will do everything in my power to ensure that no one tries to hurt Talo or do anything heinous to him. The team of girls you just saw are constantly with him whenever he's not in their dorm and they are some of the most capable students I've ever had. Besides, from what I've heard, Talo isn't completely defenceless", Ozpin promised to the worried aunt._

"_I know. It doesn't stop me from worrying", Raan acknowledged._

"_Auntie Raan, I'll be fine", Talo placated the other Quarian._

"_Okay … but that isn't the end of our problems. Learning that there's now a new species that is capable of these abilities can't be kept a secret. And it doesn't just concern the Quarians. This will have to be brought to the council. They'll want to know about this … that is if they'll even believe us. Telling them that there's a species that can do impossible things will already be unbelieved but if it comes from a Quarian, it'll be even less credible." _

_Ozpin, knowing about the Quarians' unfair reputation, proposed, "how about I give you some evidence? Images and videos of aura in use. And if that doesn't convince them, perhaps a meeting will be in order"._

"_That should technically suffice", Raan responded before deadpanning, "the hard part will be trying to get the council to have an audience with a Quarian". _

"_You'll do it, Auntie Raan", Talo responded hopefully._

"_I hope so. Anyway, how are you really, Talo?"_

"_I'm fine, Raan, really. My ship's being fixed up and it's just the FTL drive that needs work. But I'll find a way."_

"_I know you will but I'll always worry"_

"_Yeah. Listen, it's been great catching up with you._

"_Likewise. Take care of yourself, Talo. I love you"_

"_You too. And same here"_

_With that, Talo shut down communications and Raan's visor disappeared._

"_Apologies for doubting you about your aunt's temper. She doesn't seem like the type", Weiss apologised to the quarian, thinking back to the woman's outburst._

"_It's fine", Talo replied._

"_By the way", Yang started, growing a mischievous smile, "we're the first girls that you've been … acquainted with. Didn't realise we were so special"_

"_Shut up, please, Yang", Talo remarked with a slight rosy tint on his face._

_Yang snickered while Blake said, "your aunt is still nice"._

_Talo smiled while saying, "she's the best"._

_Ozpin decided to speak._

"_Well, this has proved most enlightening. I must say that we are going to have quite a busy few days ahead of us. Especially me. It's not everyday that you have the prospect of meeting several alien species", Ozpin remarked._

_He continued, "I will have to get to work. I shall leave you to your own devices"_

_He grasped the door handle before turning to the alien._

"_Talo .. prepare yourself for Friday. It'll be quite a busy day for you."_

"_Yes, sir. Also, thank you for talking to my aunt", Talo replied._

"_My pleasure", Ozpin said genially._

_With that, Ozpin left the room, leaving the girls and alien to continue their shenanigans, all of them thinking about the Friday to come._

**Flashback over.**

Talo began to think, slightly panicked about the events of tomorrow, 'What will happen to me? Will they take it well? Will they hate me? I've never been in front of a large crowd before! Will I have to give a speech? I don't know wha-'.

His train of thought was interrupted by the door opening and the team of four girls returning, having hung out with Team JNPR.

"I still can't believe that he's still trying to go on a date with me", Weiss said, exasperated.

"He'll figure it out eventually", Blake said, trying to comfort Weiss.

"He really is dense as a brick. Doesn't he realise that Pyrrha is head over heels for him?", Yang questioned incredulously.

"He'll figure it out … eventually", Ruby said, trying to convince not only her teammates but herself (BECAUSE JAUNE IS A DENSE MOTHEF &+*#!).

Wanting to take his mind off of his panicked thoughts, he decided to strike up conversation to take his mind off of the upcoming events of tomorrow.

Saving his drone's program, he shut off his omnitool and asked, "I've been here for a couple of days and I still don't know who this Team JNPR are exactly. Who are they?"

The girls turned to the alien and Ruby replied as they sat down, "they're another team. Their leader is Jaune Arc, the blonde guy you saw the other day, the red head is Pyrrha Nikos, Jaune's partner, the hyperactive ginger is Nora Valkyrie and the guy who keeps her in check is her partner Lie Ren but we call him Ren".

Talo remembered the team that he saw when he was hiding in the closet.

"Jaune isn't the best leader", Yang admits, "he isn't the best fighter, probably one of the worst in the class but he has been improving thanks to Pyrrha's classes. He's a pretty good tactician though and he's a good guy, just socially awkward."

Talo already felt sympathy for the blonde, knowing what it feels like to be socially inept.

"Another problem is that he keeps asking Weiss out on a date and as the Ice Queen she is, she rejects him every time", Yang said.

"It's not my fault he can't take a hint. This all happened because he's incapable of registering sarcasm as I made a flattering but sarcastic remark about his appearance", Weiss admitted, feeling annoyed.

Blake then chipped in.

"It doesn't help that Pyrrha is infatuated with him. He's completely oblivious", Blake remarked.

Weiss decided to take over as she said, "speaking of Pyrrha, she is Jaune's partner and most likely the best fighter in our year"

Talo remembered the kind girl from a few days ago.

"Really?", Talo asked, doubting the heiress' words.

She scoffed, "yes really. She is kind but she graduated the top of her class in Sanctum in Mistral before coming to Beacon. She also won the Mistral Regional Tournament 4 years in a row. She's quite frankly a prodigy … and for some reason, she's head over heels for Jaune."

For some reason, despite how different the leader of team JNPR and the champion were, Talo felt that the two of them would be good together. When he saw the two together, he could see that Pyrrha would look at Jaune lovingly. And although Jaune couldn't see it, there was chemistry there.

"Then there's Nora", Ruby said, looking very tired all of a sudden. As were the other girls.

"What's wrong", Talo asked.

"You saw how Nora acts for a few minutes. Imagine being with her for hours and seeing her daily", Blake deadpanned.

He remembered the girl that outclassed even Ruby in the hyperactive department. She seemed like someone who drained your patience on a regular basis.

"Nora is completely hyperactive. I don't think there's a moment when she isn't completely crazy. It doesn't help that she loves pancakes", Yang said, exhausted.

What are pancakes?", Talo asked, confused.

Unbeknownst to them, thanks to the powerful art of fourth wall breaking, a certain crazy ginger girl heard this question.

"Someone … doesn't know … about … pancakes?", Nora slowly said with a slightly dangerous glint in her eyes.

"I SHALL FIND THIS HEATHEN AND SHOW HIM THE GLORY THAT IS PANCAKES", Nora suddenly screamed. While her teammates looked at her like she'd finally cracked. Except for Ren who was a seasoned veteran when it came to Nora's insanity.

Now, back to our scheduled programming.

"Pancakes are pretty much a type of cake, a type of treat. Nora is obsessed with them. She eats so much of them, of anything, really … and yet she doesn't gain any weight", answered Yang, slightly annoyed at that last part.

It seemed, to Talo, that just talking about her was taxing.

Blake continued the conversation by saying, "The only one who can somewhat control her is Lie Ren. Nora's partner. He's known her since childhood and so there are close and Ren knows exactly what to do to calm her down."

Weiss had to add, "I've always admired Ren for his patience. He has more of it than a saint if he can somehow withstand Nora's imbecility on a daily basis."

"So, yeah, that's Team JNPR. Any reason why you wanted to know?", Ruby suddenly asked Talo, concerning the sudden interest.

"Uh … no reason. Just … I hear you're good friends with them so I guess … I wanted to know who they were", Talo fibbed, while rubbing his hands together.

Noticing Talo's nervous tic, Blake asked, "What's your genuine reason? Don't bother denying it. You lie whenever you rub your hands like that"

'Damnit', Talo thought, cursing her observation.

Sighing, Talo said, "I'm just … a little nervous about tomorrow. Your friends sound great but they're just some of the people from the four academies and I doubt everyone will be that welcoming. Some people are racist towards Faunus so what's going to stop them from hating me?"

They all looked with varying degrees of sympathy, especially Blake.

Ruby laid her hand in his shoulder.

"It'll be fine, Talo. You've nothing to be afraid of"

Weiss chipped in, "You're under the protection of Professor Ozpin. He's one of the most powerful huntsmen in Remnant. People won't dare to try and touch you"

Blake gave a nod in agreement.

Yang then added, "sure, there'll be the odd jerk of two. But, don't listen to them. And if you want, I can introduce them to Ember Celica"

Talo smiled at their reassurances before gratefully saying, "Thank You, girls. I know I'm being a bit paranoid but you're right.

Wanting to distract himself, he thought of a good way to do so and pass the time.

"You know, girls. I've talked to Weiss about a few aspects of my people's culture but there's one thing I think you'll all find interesting, even you Yang. How about I tell you all I know about the other species?", Talo asked, already having a hunch as to their response.

Ruby's face became one of childish joy, Yang gained a grin, and both Blake and Weiss has interested gleams in their eyes.

"I'll take those looks as confirmation", Talo said amusedly.

Motioning for the girls to get comfortable, he sat comfortably and began his lesson.

"Just call me Professor Zorah", Talo joked cheekily.

Yang and Ruby laughed while Blake had an amused smile and Weiss rolled her eyes.

"Ok, well, I've already told you how the protheans lived over 50,000 years ago and had an empire that expanded the galaxy and that they suddenly disappeared, leaving behind technology like the Citadel and Mass Effect Relays."

The girls all nodded in confirmation, remembering the images of the vast constructs.

"Well, after they disappeared, over the centuries and millennia, a new government was set up. The council which presides over the galaxy, ensuring that peace is maintained. It has only three council members from three species, the first to reach the citadel which became the hub of council space. The three species that have representatives on the council are the Asari, Turians and Salarians. Each of them are infamous for different reasons."

"I'll start with Asari", Talo announced as he showed the girls a picture of one.

The girls could see that the asari has blue skin, a strange shaped head as she had no hair but a strange crest. But despite that, the girls noted that she had an exotic beauty.

"Wow, she's really pretty", Ruby noted and the girls had to agree.

"Yes, she's an asari. They are possibly the most well respected race in the galaxy and they originate from the planet Thessia. They were the first to discover the citadel after they achieved space flight. There they met the keepers, strange creatures that were on the citadel when the asari found it. The keepers are still a mystery to this day. All they do is maintain the citadel but thanks to the keepers, the asari managed to establish themselves there."

Yang had to ask, "why are they the most respected species?"

Talo replied, "Well, it's because of a variety of reasons. They're known for their diplomacy, power and wisdom. It helps that they can live for a thousand years."

The girls gaped at that.

"Yep, Asari can live for centuries and they have three stages in their lives, the young, curious Maidens, the more mature Matrons and finally the wise Matriarchs. Also, because of their long lives, they have a very different view of life. Things pass for them and a lot of asari officials prefer not to do anything immediately when it comes to conflict. Also, because of their longevity, they amass lots of wisdom and knowledge which further gains people's respect. They wish to maintain peace and balance, making them a diplomatic species."

"Then, there's their combat abilities. Other than the usual combat, every asari is a natural biotic"

"What exactly is a biotic?", Weiss questioned as the girls didn't understand the terminology.

"Biotics are people who can manipulate mass effect fields. When used properly, it can be an effective tool as biotics can do many things like make people levitate", Talo explained.

"AH, THAT'S SO COOL!", Ruby squealed with stars in her eyes.

Yang agreed with a grin and Blake was admittedly interested in the possibilities.

Weiss then asked, "are any of the other species biotic?"

"Asari are the only natural biotic race but other species can have implants that allow them to be biotic. But they're not as powerful as naturals."

Continuing on, Talo decided to bring up the next tidbit of info.

"Another thing is that asari don't actually have a gender. They're classified as mono gendered"

"… uh?", the girls all asked with looks of confusion.

"Well, you see …", Talo said slightly embarrassed, "asari may be the most respected species but some people don't think so because of … certain reasons. All asari appear feminine but they don't assign a gender to themselves despite referring to other asari by female pronouns sometimes. This is because, unlike other species, the asari can have children with any species and with any gender."

The girls were dumbfounded. Even Ruby was. She actually had the talk and was wondering if she'd been fed lies.

"Now, I just want you to know that this is exclusively for the asari. The reason they can do this is because they don't … mate the same way as other species do. Sure they can have … sexual intercourse but it's not how they reproduce. They actually have the ability to unite their mind with their partners and somehow, they take their partner's dna and use it in combination with their own to create a child. It's why asari can mate with anyone of any species and gender and as a result, asari only give birth to asari but those asari inherit traits from their 'father' species. I'm not entirely sure how it works, to be honest."

The girls had to admit that the asari were bizarre in this respect.

"I suppose it makes them diverse", Yang hesitantly guessed.

"Well the truth is that asari are encouraged to mate with other species as it means that the child inherits something new. But if two asari mate, the child gains nothing so there's a lot of stigma surrounding these asari."

"But, despite all that, asari are considered attractive for … ahem a variety of reasons so it's easy for asari to mate", Talo said, coughing into his fist when talking about the asari's attractiveness.

All the girls could see that the asari would be attractive to humans, especially hormonal teenagers.

"Anyway, moving on, the second species is the Salarians, the second species to reach the citadel", Talo said as he showed his friends the picture of an amphibious and skinny looking creature.

"How are these guys special? They don't look that tough", Yang said, not being impressed by the frog like alien.

"It's true that the salarians are not the most physically imposing species but they are one of the most intelligent species. They have a knack for inventing and other forms of science and they tend to view other species as a bit slow. This is due to their hyperactive metabolism which means that they talk fast, think fast and act fast. Kind of like Ruby", Talo joked at the end.

Yang snickered, Weiss snorted and Blake smiled while Ruby pouted.

"However, because of that metabolism, they live short lives. It's rare to find a Salarian above 40."

"40 years, that's how long they live?", Blake questioned incredulously.

"That's … really short", Yang said, kind of sad about the short lifespan.

"Salarians don't really mind their short lives as they believe that when they die, they reincarnate, a sort of wheel of life."

"That's a nice religion", Ruby said happily, feeling glad that they don't worry about their deaths as a result.

"Moving on, the Salarians have not only a knack for science but they're greatest strength in combat is gathering information and using stealth, sabotage and subterfuge to win their battles. And they're good at it"

"Also, strangely, they have a certain view on relationships. There are few female salarians and so they are kept safe on their home planet Sur'Kesh and those females can become important politicians known as Dalatrasses. But when these females or other females have sex with a male Salarian, there's generally no affection behind it. To them, reproduction is simply an obligation and a business procedure and the partnerships aren't marriage and the furthest it goes is friendship. This is due to the salarians having no sex drive."

"That's … rather strange", Weiss wondered at the Salarians lack of desire for sexual activity.

"Quite. That's all I know about the salarians. The third species is the Turians, who were the third species to join the citadel", Talo said as he showed a picture of a tall, creature which had a carapace over its head which had a fringe on the back of its head.

The girls all agreed that these looked even stranger than the previous two aliens.

"Unlike the other species who have levo proteins like you humans and Faunus, Turians are dextro based like Quarians. Also, they appear avian in nature because of their carapace on all of their bodies. It was made that way to keep them safe on their home planet, Palaven which has a weaker magnetic field than other planets which basically means that their sun exposes the planet to more radiation than normal."

Blake has thought that they appeared a lot like raptors, especially their eyes.

"As for their culture, Turians are a very militaristic species and pretty much every Turian has compulsory military service before they can do what they want. They are the ones who provide the most ships and soldiers to the galaxy and are a huge asset during battles and war. However, they are known for being very firm, regarding their views."

"They generally have a strict military discipline and while they have their own desires, they are taught to always value the common good above everything else. They are definitely one of the most proactive races in the galaxy. Although, it doesn't stop them from being unbelievably uptight"

Yang snickered and said, "sounds like they need to work those sticks out their butts".

Weiss facepalmed, while Blake rolled her eyes at her partner's antics and Ruby and Talo laughed at her comment.

Talo continued after regaining his composure, "you wouldn't be the first to say that. Another part of their culture is their face tattoos as it symbolises which colony they are from. Being 'barefaced' is looked down upon and usually those Turians can't be trusted and sometimes, Turians use the term barefaced as an insult to politicians."

"The Turians are responsible for peacekeeping and the formation of C-Sec, short for Citadel Security. It's their accomplishments in this field that got them their membership on the council. But … there's a black mark on their history. On the galaxy's history."

Talo's voice had turned serious and also sad.

"Why? What happened?", Blake asked hesitantly.

"… this actually brings us on to the next species who have a history with the Turians. This species is called the Krogan."

Talk brought up a picture of a burly and fearsome alike with piercing eyes and an armoured head.

"Wow, he's a big dude", Yang remarked about the size of the Krogan.

"The Krogan are possibly the most physically imposing species. They originated from the planet Tuchanka. They are warriors first and foremost. Fighting is their life. Which is why they survived on their planet which has harsh conditions, a lack of resources and too many predators to be considered normal. They thrived and advanced and because of their innate desire to fight, they used their tech to kill each other. Using nuclear weaponry, they turned Tuchanka into a wasteland and the Krogan were reduced to primitive tribes, simply fighting"

The girls were baffled by the Krogan's simpleminded obsession with fighting. It led to them bombing themselves back to the Stone Age.

"Honestly, how could one species be that brutish and idiotic?", Weiss asked annoyed.

"Who knows? They're just a naturally aggressive species. But one day, the Krogan were uplifted by the Salarians, given the tech needed to achieve space travel. The Krogan are warriors but there aren't many scientists. But, the salarians' motive for doing this wasn't altruistic. It was because the galaxy needed the Krogan."

Why?", asked Ruby.

"The galaxy was under attack by an insect species called the Rachni. They were spreading across the galaxy like wildfire and they were far from peaceful. And the council were losing. So the salarians took the initiative and uplifted the Krogan. In return, they would serve the council and deal with the Rachni themselves. As for why the Krogan were chosen, they are incredibly difficult to kill because they actually have secondary and in some cases, tertiary sets of organs. Not only does it make them hard to kill but they can live for a thousand years like asari."

"They sound tough", Yang wondered in amazement.

"Yep, they are. Because of their redundant organ systems and armour, they're especially hard to kill and because of a … particular area which has more than one pair, Krogan are especially … virile", Talo said uncomfortably.

The girls all flushed, realising what he was saying.

"Due to this, female krogans could produce 1000 eggs over the course of a year, giving them the numbers to fight back against the Rachni. Eventually, the Rachni were defeated and the Krogan were saviours of the galaxy. But, that wouldn't last long."

The girls all looked worried, getting the feeling that the story was going to take a darker turn.

"The salarians had made a mistake. They'd given the Krogan colonies for their efforts, but they hadn't taken into account the fact that Krogan are particularly fertile species with high birth rates. Quickly, the Krogan ran out of space and started overtaking more planets that were already occupied. It led to the Krogan Rebellions which had the Krogan on one side and the other species on the other. And the Krogan would have won if it hadn't been for the Genophage.

"What's the Genophage?", Weiss inquires cautiously.

Talo didn't say anything to begin with but eventually he said, "the other species realised that they couldn't outnumber the Krogan so the Salarians created the Genophage, a bioweapon which the Turians later launched against the Krogan. It's effect is … controversial. What it basically did was make the Krogan virtually infertile. To this day, the 1000s of eggs that are produced by the rare Krogan Female , only a few survive."

The girls were … horrified. There was no other way to describe it.

"Why … why did they use it?", Ruby asked, having slightly glistening eyes after hearing the source of the Krogan's plight.

"Although I agree that the Genophage was completely unethical, it seemed like the only way that the council races could've beaten the Krogan without using their most powerful weapons to wipe out the Krogan. They didn't have the numbers to defeat them and they didn't have the Krogan's resilience. There seemed to be only two ways it could've ended, with the Genophage or genocide."

The girls were down after hearing this.

"It doesn't help that now the Krogan have many negative opinions directed at them. Krogan respect strength above all else, to them, fighting and power are all that matter and after the Genophage was used, it had a profound psychological effect on the Krogan. They don't think that the Genophage will ever be cured as there are hardly any Krogan scientists while none of the other alien scientists are rushing to find a cure. So, the Krogan have developed a sort of fatalism and pessimistic view of the universe, which has led to many Krogan becoming mercenaries for money and other selfish and short sighted goals and they don't care if they die. This is what has caused the Krogan to decline in numbers even further and why there are so few Krogan left."

"Wow, that's really … depressing. It's kind of a similar to the Quarians' situation", Yang notes sadly.

Talo admitted, "True. But I think that they have it even worse than my people. At least we aren't in danger of extinction."

Seeing the looks in the girls' faces and feeling down himself, Talo decided to move on to escape all the doom and gloom.

"Anyway, let's move on. The next species is the volus."

With that, the girls all lost their melancholy expressions and began to focus on their teacher and the picture he was showing. It depicted a small, rotund alien that was obscured by a full body suit like a Quarian.

"Hey, they're kinda like Quarians", Ruby noticed.

"True, the Volus need to live inside those suits but the reasons behind it are different. The Volus game from the planet Irune and it has a particularly different environment and atmosphere to other planets. It's home to an ammonia based ecology, it's gravity is 1.5 stronger than your planet's from what I can tell and it has a high pressure atmosphere. It's why there bodies have developed the way they are and why they can't survive in other atmospheres more suited for other forms of life so they wear the suits. Irune is really the only place where they can live without them."

"What does a Volus look like?", Blake enquired, curious as to what lay beneath the suit.

"No one knows. Nobody has seen a Volus outside their suit", Talo responded.

"Hey, Talo, what do Quarians look like?", Yang asked, wondering about her friend's true appearance.

"Uh, well, out of all the species, I'd say my people look the most similar to yours. We don't see much of our faces and bodies because of our suits but we have seen what we look like when in a sterile environment. We also have evidence from before our people were exiled. We actually have hair like you unlike the other species. Our skin colour can range from purple to blue and other colours but not a skin colour as light as yours. And you can see my eyes, they don't have pupils or irises. I have black hair, light purple skin and light violet eyes."

All the girls tried to paint the picture in there heads and they realised that Quarian did look much like humans, even more so than the asari.

"Moving on", Talo said, returning to the Volus, "as you can see, they're not the most imposing people and so, they aren't fighters. Instead, they're traders, economists, merchants etc, anything to do with money. After all, when they arrived on the citadel, they were the ones to set up the economy and currency that the galaxy used to this day, the credit."

"It's like the lien, our currency", Weiss said.

"They must be an important species if they were responsible for establishing the economy. Why haven't they been given a position in the council? ", Blake noted, remembering that only Turians, Asari and Salarians had councillors.

Talo hesitated but said, "um, actually, while the Volus have an embassy on the Citadel and an ambassador, it's true that they don't have a councillor. It's actually a sore topic for many Volus."

"Well I guess I would be ticked too", Yang admitted.

"So would I. That's all I know about the Volus and now, I'll talk about the Elcor".

Swiping the Volus picture aside, he brought up the picture of a strange and rather large creature with grey skin, two black eyes, vertical slits where the mouth of a person would be and it was stood on its leg and was using its large arms to support itself.

"Now, this is an elcor. They are like the Volus, as in they don't have a councillor but they do have an embassy and ambassador. They were invited by the asari to the Citadel when they first went into space."

"They look really strong", Ruby pointed out.

"Yes", Talo replied, "although the elcor aren't warriors, they lived on the planet Dekunna which has a very strong gravity which lead to them being strong but also really slow. This actually had an impact on their psychology and led to them being deliberate and conservative."

"Also, Elcor have extremely highly attuned olfactory senses", Talo explained which gained looks of understanding from Blake and Weiss and confused stares from the two sisters.

Sighing, Weiss said, annoyed, "it means that they have extremely good senses of smell, you dolts."

Ruby and Yang went oh in understanding.

"Yes, they have very strong senses of smell and it is to do with how they communicate. The elcor speak in a monotonous tone and they don't use any emotion because at the same time, they are releasing scents and making moves that are too subtle for other species to see but other elcor can see them. These scents and actions indicate what the elcor is feeling but any other species can't see or smell them. So, in order to avoid confusion and any misunderstanding, when speaking to other species, an elcor also says what they're feeling when they say something. For example, one might say, "happily, it's very nice to meet you" and that shows what the elcor is feeling."

Having finished on the elcor, the quarian then brought up the picture of a pink, strangely shaped jelly fish which has long tentacles.

"Uh, a … jellyfish?", Ruby asked bewildered while the other girls were as equally as confused.

"What's a jellyfish?", Talo asked, confused by the clearly human terminology.

"It's a sea creature that has tentacles", Blake answered simply.

"Oh, well, the Hanar do actually originate from a planet called Kahje which is 90% ocean. But thanks to special contra-gravitic levitation packs which use mass effect fields, they're able to move around on dry land. Hanar are known for being diplomats which is probably because they are … ridiculously polite. I don't think a Hanar is capable of insulting someone."

"Really?", Yang asked incredulously.

"Yep. Another fact is that they worship the protheans which they call the Enkindlers thanks to the protheans ruins on their planet."

"Also, the Hanar communicate using patterns of bioluminescence which other species need translators for. Furthermore, a Hanar has two names, a face name and a soul name, they use their face name as a label in public but when with those close to them, the Hanar will use their Soul Name which is only entrusted to those closest to the Hanar and the name is usually poetic. Finally, the Hanar, whenever in public and using its face name, the Hanar refers to itself as 'this one' and not in the first person as they see it as egotistical. Only when in private with someone they've entrusted their soul name to will they refer to themselves as I", Talo recounted for the girls.

"Huh, I would actually like to meet one of these Hanar", Weiss said, particularly taken by their excessive politeness.

"It's true that their politeness is refreshing but it can get incredible aggravating", Talo admitted, having heard about Hanar from Quarians who've returned from their pilgrimages.

Now, Talo drew up a picture of a reptilian alien, the size of a human with green scaly skin and big wide eyes that appeared shadowed.

"This is a drell and like the Krogan, you don't see many of them and like my people, they lost their original home world."

Ruby gasped in sadness while Blake asked, "why's that?"

"The Drell originally came from the arid planet Rakhana centuries ago but the planet was slowly turned into a wasteland by rapid industrial expansion and overpopulation. The Drell seemed doomed as they didn't have access to space faring tech and so, they had nowhere to go but .. they were saved. By the Hanar"

All four girls gaped at that.

"You're telling me that those jellyfish saved the Drell!?", Yang asked.

"Yes and because of that, the Drell were incredibly grateful even if only 375,000 Drell could be rescued while the other billions of Drell had to stay behind and perish. They were taken back to the Hanar's home world and the Drell lived inside a city that cut them off from the outside. This is because the Drell can't survive in a humid environment like on Kahje as it effects their lungs. They need to stay as dry as possible. But, this humidity has become the main killer of Drell as it causes a lung disease known as Kepral's Syndrome. But despite this, the Drell are grateful to the Hanar and are often close to them, often working for them."

Swiping the Drell picture aside, Talo brings up the picture of a particularly ugly alien. It has 4 eyes and sickly yellow skin.

"Sheesh, he's a looker, isn't he?", Yang said sarcastically.

"It's true that Batarians aren't the most pretty species and their personalities aren't too great either", Talo agreed with Yang.

"Wait", Weiss interrupted, "didn't you say that Batarians were the ones who attacked you?"

"Yeah, Batarians are usually criminals such as drug runners, thieves, slavers, any crime, they've most likely done it. They're a rather aggressive people from the planet Khar'Shan. I still don't understand why the council allowed them an embassy, the Batarians are all trouble, I doubt there's one that hasn't committed a crime."

"That's a sweeping statement", Blake said, a bit concerned about how Talo was speaking about Batarians.

"Blake, I wouldn't judge a person on their species and I wouldn't dare try to be racist. But, Blake, crime is pretty much as part of their lives, their society. They've invaded planets and colonies that belong to the council races and they've never shown remorse. I've seen it myself whenever the flotilla was near a Batarian ship. I've seen them enslave people all for a quick credit and they even tried to destroy the migrant fleet a couple of times. The only reason it wasn't destroyed was because of our massive numbers and the fact it was always only a few ships. Trust me, the Batarians are not a good species. You'll have to meet a Batarian to know what I'm talking about."

While usually against prejudice, Blake knew that Talo wouldn't lie about such things and she could see a slight sadistic smile on the Batarian in the picture and that was enough to convince her.

It may have been Talo's imagination but it appeared as though Yang's eyes flashed red when he told the girls about the Batarians' crimes while Weiss and Ruby looked just as abhorred.

"Alright, I'm going to tell you about the final species.", Talo said, wanting to escape the topic of the Batarians.

The final picture showed a creature that had rough and strange looking skin, blood red eyes and sharp needle like teeth. It was actually quite frightening to look at and all 4 girls were unnerved by the creature's appearance.

"This is a Vorcha. They come from the small, overcrowded planet called Heshtok and it's not a nice place with limited resources that the Vorcha fight over. Vorcha are naturally aggressive and are savage in nature and extremely primitive, having not advanced themselves at all. In fact, they haven't evolved for years and years due to their limited ability to regenerate and adapt to their environments which they usually can only do once due to their incredibly short lives."

"What exactly is their role in the galaxy? How do they contribute?", Blake asked.

Talo, in response, snickered and at Blake's affronted look, Talo said, "I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at what you said because honestly, the Vorcha were uplifted to fight and that's it. They aren't exactly the most intelligent species, being almost as primitive as animals. All they do is fight for the people who train them which are usually gangs since Vorcha are found in the darkest places of the Galaxy. But, to be frank, no one takes the Vorcha seriously since they aren't smart enough to plan for themselves, are recklessly aggressive and are incredibly short lived. Most people, if not all, view them as nothing more than scavengers like us Quarians or even worse, to some, they are a blight."

And with that, Talo took a breath after having talked so much.

"Well, there you go", Talo said, lifting his arms up before dropping them to his sides.

"All I can say is … THIS WAS SO GOOD! THERE ARE SO MANY ALIENS! I WANT TO SEE THEM AL-".

Weiss clamped a hand over the red cloaked girl's mouth and told her to be quiet, while she looked around the room, hoping nobody heard her.

"I must admit, this was fascinating", Blake admitted with a small smile.

"I'm not usually one to sit and listen to teachers drone on but this was actually really cool. Thanks, T", Yang thanked the alien with a grin on her face.

"It was my pleasure", Talo responded happily before continuing, "Though I will admit that there's still much I don't know about each species. I merely told you the basics and what I've learned from books".

"It's perfectly fine. This was sufficient information and it was all interesting", Weiss responded with a small, grateful smile.

Talo smiled in response before he looked out the window. He hadn't realised but much time had passed and now it was evening.

"It appears time really does fly when you're having fun", Talo said, motioning outside.

And with that, the girls and alien all decided to return to their own devices after that long lesson, courtesy of Professor Zorah. Talo returned to his omnitool to continue working on his drone while also avoiding Ruby's puppy dog gaze so he wouldn't divulge the true nature of the program until it was ready. He managed to appease her by saying it would be ready by tomorrow. So, she left the alien be to go play with Zwei while Weiss was doing work **[what a surprise!], **Blake was reading and Yang was listening to music on her scroll while lying down with her eyes closed.

Eventually, the evening horizon faded away and was replaced by the deep blue and black night sky with twinkling stars, millions of miles away. Everyone was ready by this point to go to bed and with final good nights all around, the inhabitants of the room drifted off into a deep slumber, even the once nervous Quarian, in preparation for the events of the next day.

**AND DONE!**

**This chapter involved a lot of research to ensure that I was correct with some of my information. Speaking not information, apologies if you didn't like the massive info dump but I just wanted the girls to be introduced to the different species and I didn't want to gloss over it****. It's also good for those who aren't mass effect fans.**

**I just want to give another thank you to PhoenixClaw2128. His review helped me edit some of my past chapters as well as help me decide to have Talo teach the girls about the alien species. I appreciate it and I would be even more so for further reviews, followers and favourites. It really inspires me to continue writing and I really hope you guys are enjoying the story and if you're not, I'm sorry.**

**But anyway, all I have left to say is that I hope you have a wonderful day and, peace****!**


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